Asia

Reserve Bank of India is Studying the Issuance of a Central Bank Digital Currency

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) published its annual report this week and buried within the massive tome are many indications as to the banks perspective on Fintech. One item of note is the fact the RBI is currently studying the possibility of issuing a… Read More

Thailand Commercial Bank Bangkok Bank Announces Season 2 For InnoHub Fintech Accelerator

Thailand commercial bank Bangkok Bank announced this week it is now inviting startups from around the globe to participate in the second season of its InnoHub Fintech Accelerator program from now until October 7th. According to Bangkok Bank, the Bangkok Bank InnoHub Session 2 is… Read More

Huobi Teams Up With NTUC Learning Hub To Bring Blockchain Education To Singapore

Huobi Group, a digital asset marketplace, announced on Friday it has entered an official partnership with the National Trading Union Congress Learning Hub (NTUC) to introduce a series of new courses on blockchain for cryptocurrency enthusiasts and fintech professionals. According to Huobi, the courses will include… Read More

MoneyGram & GCash Launch Money Transfer Service in the Philippines

Just a little over a month after announcing it was extended its digital money transfer services in five new countries, MoneyGram (NASDAQ: MGI) announced it has joined forces with GCash to launch a new money transfer service to more than 10 million GCash mobile wallets in the… Read More

Cryptocurrency Events Now Banned in China’s “Best Commercial City,” Guangzhou

Following a ban on crypto promotional events in Beijing’s central business district last week, the Financial Development Bureau of Guangzhou (FDBG) has required that, “all relevant units in the district (of Guangzhou) may not undertake any form of virtual currency promotion and publicity activities,” National Business Daily… Read More

Blockchain Platform Orbs Expands Into South Korea Through Partnership With Kakao Subsidiary Ground X

Orbs, an Israel-based hybrid blockchain scaling base-layer protocols, announced on Tuesday it has established a partnership with Ground X, the blockchain subsidiary of South Korean internet company Kakao, for research, development, and business cooperation. Through the partnership, Orbs has expanded into South Korea and opened… Read More

Monetary Authority of Singapore and Dubai Financial Services Authority Strengthen Fintech Relationship

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) have strengthened their pre-existing Fintech relationship with a new agreement. According to MAS, this most recent collaboration will see mutual referrals of promising Fintech firms between the two jurisdictions.  The agreement is… Read More

SoftBank Vision Fund to Invest $100 Million Into Chinese Online Insurer ZhongAn

SoftBank’s Vision Fund is reportedly looking to invest $100 million into Chinese insurtech startup, ZhongAn. The upcoming investment comes just weeks after ZhongAn announced the launch of its new its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, ZhongAn Technology Intelligent Open Platform for Insurers. ZhongAn, which was launched by Ant Financial,… Read More

Plug and Play China Celebrates Third Anniversary

Global innovation platform Plug and Play announced on Monday it recently celebrated the third anniversary of its Plug and Play China program. The organization reported that the program has invested in over 200 startups and accelerated more than 500 startups across a total of eight… Read More

North Korea to Host October Blockchain Conference

North Korea, a country more known for its ties to devastating hacks on South Korean crypto exchange than for white hat blockchain development, will evidently host a blockchain conference in Pyongyang this October, The Straits Times reports. The “Korean International Blockchain Conference” is set to take… Read More

More Crypto Censure in China as Baidu Search Censors its Tieba Forum

Chinese search giant Baidu will no longer allow discussions of crypto on its popular forum site, Baidu Tieba, China Times reports. The decision is the latest in a spate of recent crackdowns being waged against crypto-industries in China, actions seeking to give teeth to a… Read More

Fintech Payment Firm LumoXchange Extends Money Transfer Marketplace With Launch in the Philippines

LumoXchange, U.S.-based fintech payments company, announced on Monday the launch of its money transfer service to the Philippines. The company reported it has built a platform that allows users to compare exchange rate offers from the leading banks in the Philippines and send money. Users… Read More

Publicly Traded Crowdfunding Company CoAssets Issues Report on Annual Results: First Full Year of Profitable Operations

CoAssets Limited, a crowdfunding platform traded on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX: CA8), has reported its financial results for the full year ended 30 June 2018. According to the company which is based in Singapore, CoAssets experienced its first full year of profitable operations representing… Read More

Securities Commission Malaysia Reviews LavidaCoin ICO for Possible Breach of Securities Laws, Project Seeks $1.5 Billion

LavidaCoin: “Step Mother of Coin” The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has issued a statement on the initial coin offering (ICO) “LavidaCoin.” According to a report in the Independent, the cryptocurrency is the creation of a controversial Malaysia socialite who is well known in the country… Read More

Exchange Rankings Shake Up: Researchers Say Two-Thirds of Crypto Trade Volume is Fake

Two-thirds of all trade volume in crypto- or $6 billion dollars per day- is faked, say researchers at the Blockchain Transparency Institute (BIT), and many of the world’s “top” crypto exchanges aren’t even coming close. The researchers made their conclusions after comparing the order books… Read More

Popular Chinese Apps WeChat Pay and Alipay Escalating Crypto Countermeasures

Earlier today, and two days after WeChat suspended the social media accounts of 8 Chinese crypto news outlets, WeChat parent company Tencent has announced it will undertake “remediation measures” to monitor and “intercept” cryptocurrency sales and purchases on its WeChat Pay app. Similar news was… Read More

Crypto Exchange Targeted by Possible North Korean Hack Group

Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab has claimed that hackers with possible ties to North Korea have struck against an unnamed crypto exchange using malware targeting macOS. Kaspersky lab attributes the latest hack to the Lazarus hack group. According to Wikipedia, the Lazarus Group earned its… Read More

Thai Central Bank Trialing R3 Distributed Ledger Among Mixed Reports of Enterprise DLT Performance, May Issue CBDC

Thailand’s central bank, the Bank of Thailand (BOT), has announced it is trialing a version of R3’s distributed ledger system, Corda, as a means of making wholesale funds transfers more efficient. R3’s distributed ledger will also be used by the BOT to issue a wholesale Central… Read More

Report: Toshihide Endo, Head of the Japan Financial Services Agency, Wants Crypto to Grow

Buried within a report from Bloomberg this week was an interesting statement from Japan. Speaking with the relatively new Commissioner of the Japanese Financial Services Agency, Toshihide Endo, the public official shared his thoughts on cryptocurrency and Japan. Japan became a haven of sorts for… Read More

Blackfish Technology Closes on $50 Million Series A+

Consumer finance platform Blackfish Technology has closed on a Series o A+ round financing at $50 million. In January, Blackfish closed on a $140 million funding round (950 million CNY). New investors in this most recent round are Lightspeed Venture Partners, Rakuten Ventures, China Growth Capital,… Read More

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