FinTech & Digital banking news
April, May & June 2021
The Startup News Asia’s Q2 fintech news summary gathers individual fintech and banking technology related links to online news items, columns, downloads and more, each one free to read. Headlines featured cover a wide angle view of the fintech space – digital payments, cryptocurrency, NFTs and beyond – and were reported across April, May and June of 2021.
Taking a wide angle view allows us to give an overview of fintech news, looking first at the Asia-Pacific whilst also looking at ‘outside world’ banking technology developments, giving readers points of reference and a far wider – and more robust – context within which to frame ‘local’ fintech news items.
Note: Headline items featured in this Q2 fintech news round-up deliberately look at implementations and initiatives rather than looking at developments in a single industry (e-commerce, for instance) or a particular location.
The quarterly fintech news items listed below are each linked directly to the online items behind them – no middleman, no interstitials, no wasted time, and free to read.
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June 2021 | May 2021 | April 2021
Fintech headlines in June 2021
- Download: Are Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) the money of tomorrow? From Deloitte (pdf)
- Download: Global Islamic Fintech Report 2021 (pdf)
- Available to download: ‘Emerging Challengers and Incumbent Operators Battle for Asia Pacific’s Digital Banking Opportunity’ from Boston Consulting Group
- ICYMI: US Republicans’ House campaign arm to accept contributions in cryptocurrency, processing donations using BitPay and immediately converting into dollars
- AWS Fintech Forum 2021 set for July 6th, running online, presented by Tech In Asia and Amazon Web Services
- ICYMI: Fintech Angel Operators network launches, focusing on Southeast Asia investments and drawing on senior execs in global fintech firms
- FinTech news, quarterly: A wide angle round-up of key fintech and banking technology news headlines, articles, reports and downloads from Q1 2021
- ICYMI: JPM Coin, JP Morgan’s digital token, looks at future “programming what money can do for you, whether it’s conditional payments, whether it’s things like tax assessments.”
- South Korea: “The race to develop AI bankers is heating up in Korea, especially after the pandemic brought about the closure of hundreds of offline stores nationwide.”
- Stripe payments giant launches Stripe Identity, artificial intelligence and ML tech ID tool intended to securely verify identities of users from more than 30 countries
- “The digital currency revolution is here, and may sweep away 5,000 years of monetary history. There is a coming storm in the world of finance as governments around the world engage in a global contest to digitize their currencies.”
- Q1 2021: Cryptocurrency, CBDC and digital currency news headline summary for January, February and March of this year
- Download: ‘The future of digital currencies’, a February 2021 9-page outline from Standard Chartered (pdf)
- Hong Kong Monetary Authority launches Fintech 2025 Strategy, featuring focus on CBDCs and cross-border payments
- India: FamPay raises $38M Series A with goal of building the country’s first neobank for teenagers, with digital payments card without the need for a bank account
- India: UK’s Tide fintech to enter Indian market with $138M investment plan, expecting to create over 1K jobs in 5 years, providing banking services for SMEs
- Indonesia: goKampus raises pre-Series A, aiming to provide all-in-one app-based college services, spanning enrolments, virtual courses, scholarships, internships, loans and more
- Indonesia: Amartha peer-to-peer lending startup raises $7.5M, connecting investors funding with women micro-entrepreneurs in rural areas as business capital loans
- Indonesia: Wagely raises $5.6M with earned wage access focus on Indonesia’s 100M Indonesian low- and middle-income workers
- A brief look at LINE BK, digital bank from Japan’s LINE messenger app LINE, initially launched in Thailand and now expanding its user base in Taiwan
- Japan: A look at Softbank-backed digital payments firm PayPay, boasting 3M merchants and over 39M users
- Malaysia: Sunway conglomerate to apply for online-only banking licence, aiming to move into fintech sector with focus on individuals and MSMEs
- Philippines: Uno digital bank gains license from country’s central bank, enabling AI-run features including facial recognition and voice ID
- Philippines: Netbank launches following regulatory approval, providing banking-as-a-service operations for companies entering or transitioning to digital financial services
- Philippines: Voyager Innovations raises $167M, aiming to grow PayMaya fintech’s mobile wallet, payments processing and digital remittance businesses
- Singapore: A look at SourceSage fintech, streamlining invoice management and payments processes developed with Visa via the IMDA Open Innovation Platform
- Singapore: Over 300 firms apply for Monetary Authority of Singapore payments and crypto exchange licences, including Alibaba and Google
- Sri Lanka: PayMedia fintech startup secures LKR 85M loan from NDB in part due to funding access provided by new, startup-friendly credit scoring framework
- Taiwan: Act Governing Electronic Payment Institutions amendments set to come into effect in July, formalising opportunities in cross-border remittances
- Vietnam: Mfast fintech startup raises $1.5M Pre-Series A with financial institution partnerships that provide services like loans and insurance to a primarily rural customer base
- Vietnam: Infina raises $2M with app-based savings and investments services, providing alternatives to investing in long-term asset classes like real estate
- Australia: Zeller, fintech startup from former Visa and Square execs, raises additional Au$50M pre-launch funding, looking to take on Australia’s major banks
- Hong Kong: An intro to PopSand Robotics and their education-focused robot aimed at helping children learn English through conversation
- ICYMI: Telkom comms major launches Africa’s first Mastercard virtual card for transacting using WhatsApp, enabling e-commerce and payments locally and internationally
- India: Refyne raises $16M Series A with plug-and-play earned wage access software, providing employers with method enabling employees to access real-time salary
- South Korea: Seoul Fintech Lab partners F10 to bring fintech and insurance-tech accelerator program to South Korea
- ICYMI: TAG Innovation to become Pakistan’s first digital bank in country where 70% of adults – near 100 million people – don’t have a bank account
- “There’s a new vision for crypto, and it’s wildly different from Bitcoin”
- Singapore’s BondEvalue bond exchange gains $6M led by Citi bank with blockchain-based bond market ‘electronification’
- China: Past digital yuan project head talks of CBDCs in future working on Ethereum smart contract basis rather than as digital cash, executing functions when set conditions are met
- China: Will digitization change the status of the yuan at home and abroad?
- Hong Kong: Amber Group cryptocurrency trading firm raises $100M Series B, ten times the company’s 2019 Series A, offering algorithmic trading and more
- Indonesia: Cryptocurrency transaction volume grew by nearly 470% from $4.4BN last year to $25BN in the first 5 months of 2021
- ICYMI: Snickerdoodle Labs raises $2.3M with data privacy-focused NFTs, aiming for NFTs to be ‘the cookies of the Web 3.0 ecosystem’
- ICYMI: Square payments provider considering developing hardware cryptocurrency wallet, essentially open-source and not tied to Square ecosystem
- India: Mastercard takes equity stake in Instamojo online selling platform with sights on the country’s MSMEs and gig workers, and e-commerce market
- Everything You Need To Know About What Amazon Is Doing In Financial Services, via CB Insights
- Australia: Zeller, fintech startup from former Visa and Square execs, raises additional Au$50M pre-launch funding, looking to take on Australia’s major banks
- Video: Play-To-Earn, NFT Gaming in the Philippines – how a community earns real-world money by playing token-rewards games like Axie Infinity
- Australia: A brief round-up of recent tech startup funding news, touching on SME finance, insurance tech, proptech and more, from Smart Company
- The digital currencies that matter’: Get ready for Fedcoin and the e-euro – via The Economist
- South Korea: Residents to be required to pay tax on crypto assets held in overseas exchanges, starting January 2022
- El Salvador president announces plan to make Bitcoin legal tender alongside US Dollar, subject to approval of legislation by El Salvador congress
- South Korea: Over $47M in bitcoin, ethereum and other crypto assets were confiscated from 12K people accused of tax evasion following months-long probe
- Bank of France completes CBDC settlement experiment, testing CBDC issuance and settlements on a public blockchain via a smart contract simulation
- Download: Bloomberg Crypto Outlook, June 2021 Edition (pdf)
- Philippines: Japan’s Marubeni trading house to take stake in e-money platform JV for seafarers between NYK Line shipping firm and Filipino TDG conglomerate
- Philippines: 10 financial literacy projects gain grants and support from PhilDev Foundation and Cebuana Lhuillier Foundation, focusing on the underserved
- ICYMI: Andreessen Horowitz venture capital giant – a16z – raises $2.2BN for Crypto Fund III, making it the VC industry’s largest cryptocurrency-focused investment fund
- “Unlike cryptocurrencies…central bank digital currencies would be issued, backed and controlled by domestic national banks [allowing]…governments to monitor every transaction…”
- China, global trade & CBDC: “The only question is how far-reaching the ramifications will be across issues related to who controls access to capital and its movements.”
- ICYMI: Telkom comms major launches Africa’s first Mastercard virtual card for transacting using WhatsApp, enabling e-commerce and payments locally and internationally
- Sri Lanka: National Development Bank selects Axion to deploy OneConnect artificial intelligence-driven video know-your-customer tech
- Thailand: Securities and Exchange Commission bans digital asset exchanges from trading meme- or fan-based tokens, NFTs and exchange-issued tokens
- Australia: Lloyds Auctions Australia begins accepting cryptocurrency for all purchases on its marketplace
Fintech & banking tech: May 2021
- Google Pay expands personal finance moves, adding features including deals at Safeway and Target, public transit payments and spending monitoring
- European Investment Bank, lending arm of the European Union, issued $121M in 2-year digital notes using Ethereum tech, a digital bond on a public blockchain
- Expara FEX Innovation Challenge 2021 now open for applications, seeking fintech professionals to demonstrate their solutions for the commercial market
- A brief look at the opportunities, and challenges, presented to financial institutions by cryptocurrency and decentralized finance
- “For an asset, particularly one with little…financial market infrastructure…there is a big incentive to tokenize on a public blockchain. It gets immediate access to a global financial infrastructure.”
- A video round-up of 16 recent fintech and banking technology news headlines, at-a-glance and QR coded to connect you to the online articles behind each headline
- Central Bank of Bahrain to pilot digital currency settlement project, partnering with JP Morgan and local Bank ABC, focusing on instant cross-border payments
- Switzerland’s software giant Temenos giving more than 3K client banks ability to offer crypto features to customers via Taurus crypto/blockchain firm partnership
- The Australian Fintech Market online event set for May 18th, a panel discussion to highlight key market information and insights for firms considering entering Australia
- German stock exchange and Commerzbank partner 360X to develop blockchain-based platforms for ‘real assets’ like art and real estate
- Cambodia: ARSAR fintech takes overall win and $10K in Reverse Innovation competition with platform focused on digital onboarding and user authentication
- Mastercard investing in smart contract tech to pair with central bank digital currencies, aiming to help governments evaluate the utility of CBDCs beyond payments
- CBDCs: “It is not obvious that new forms of private money that reference fiat currency, like stablecoins, can carry the same level of protection as bank deposits or fiat currency”
- Download: Crypto Theses For 2021 – Key trends, people, companies and projects across Crypto, Bitcoin and Ethereum (pdf)
- ICYMI: WeWork office-sharing major to accept payments in cryptocurrencies, partnering with Coinbase and Bitpay payment app
- 3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study results, from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (pdf)
- PayPal payments giant to allow users to withdraw cryptocurrency to off-platform third-party wallets
- Hong Kong: FormationFi closes $3.3M funding round with platform simplifying creation of decentralized finance portfolios, helps users better manage risk
- India: Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay and other mobile wallets to be interoperable from April 2022, allowing sending and receiving of payments
- India: Stockal raises $3M pre-Series A with platform allowing investors to take stakes in assets including shares, ETFs and hedge funds outside of the Indian market
- Indonesia: GajiGesa fintech startup gains new backers with earned wage access and other services for workers in Indonesia’s 60M small businesses
- Indonesia: Bibit raises $65M with digital investing app and robo-advisory service, helping first-time investors invest in mutual fund products
- Japan: An interview intro to Minna Bank, gearing up for launch as an app-based digital-only challenger bank
- Malaysia: MyMy fintech gains conditional Bank Negara e-money licencing, aiming to be world’s first Shariah-compliant digital bank and with sights on e-wallet services late 2021
- Malaysia: Finology takes global win at Seedstars World 2020/2021 Competition, landing $500K with fintech services across loans, banking, insurance and more
- Download: Philippines – Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap 2020-2023 (pdf)
- Philippines: An intro to PearlPay, providing end-to-end digital and banking services with a focus on the marginalized and underserved population
- Philippines: Rizal Commercial Banking Corp partners PayMongo digital payments firm to boost reach of financial products and services
- DBS Bank, JP Morgan and Singapore gov’t-owned Temasek investment firm partner for Partior, new cross-border payments venture with CBDC considerations in the mix
- Singapore’s Global FinTech Hackcelerator applications close June 11th, this year focusing on ‘green finance’ and the role of Green FinTechs
- ICYMI: Google makes first foray into remittances, enabling Google Pay users in the US to send money to GPay users in India and Singapore
- ICYMI: Twitter launches Tip Jar function, allowing people to send and receive tips via payment services offered by Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal and Venmo
- Vietnam: Nano Technologies raises $3M with VUI app, allowing workers to get pay daily, based on hours accrued, instead of weekly or bi-weekly
- Fintech startups: FEXcelerate, Innovation Challenge from Expara and FEX Credit, is open for applications focusing on the Vietnam market
- Sri Lanka: A brief intro to DirectPay cashless payments fintech firm
- Facebook-backed Diem, digital currency project formerly known as Libra, to now operate from the US, withdrawing application for Swiss payment licence
- ICYMI: Mastercard New Payments Index infographic, drawn from survey results gained from over 15K consumers across 18 markets globally
- Indonesia: BRI Agro, lender primarily serving the agricultural sector over the last 3 decades, announces plan to transform into a digital bank as part of an overall rebranding
- Pakistan’s JS Bank launches Digi Cheque service nationwide, the country’s first digital cheque service, building on existing mobile banking services
- Philippines: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas launches QR Ph, the Philippines’ national QR code standard for digital payments, with PayMaya e-wallet the country’s first to adopt
- ICYMI: Apple searching for hires experienced in digital wallets, fast payments, cryptocurrency and BNPL programs, suggesting focused moves into payment systems
- Thailand: Siam Commercial Bank to launch hotel booking app in 2022, focusing on hospitality SMEs by not charging a gross profit fee
- India: Farm Infinity gains funding with cloud-based, mobile/web platform to facilitate access to financial services for India’s 125M smallholder farmers
- China: A brief look at the rise of AI and automation in funds management
- Download: FinTech Market in Japan – Blockchain, via FinCity Tokyo (pdf)
- ICYMI: An intro to recently-launched Instars social media platform, decentralized and privacy-focused, paying users for participation with crypto-backed smart contracts
- An intro to WalletsClub, providing a Visa-like service for digital wallets, enabling money transfers possible between hundreds of electronic money services
- ICYMI: MoneyGram transfer giant to allow customers to buy and sell bitcoin for cash at 12K US retail locations in partnership with Coinme
- Singapore’s Alpha Impact cryptocurrency platform gains $3.1M via private token sale, with copy-trading platform allowing users to mimic more experienced traders
- Singapore’s DBS bank now offers offers clients tokenization, trading and custody services for Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash and XRP
- Available to download now: The Chainalysis 2021 Crypto Crime Report
- ICYMI: The Digital Dollar Project – Exploring a US Central Bank Digital Currency, from Accenture and The Digital Dollar Foundation (pdf)
- A video-based round-up of 16 recent cryptocurrency and digital currency news headlines, QR coded to link you to the online articles behind each headline
- Australia: A round-up of recent tech, startup and funding news headlines, gathered over the past month
- Download: Asia’s Crypto Landscape, the key exchanges, funds and market makers that define crypto in China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and SE Asia (pdf)
- Download: Payment Systems in the Digital Age – Case of ASEAN, via ASEAN Policy Brief (pdf)
- Australia: The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age launch new Entrepreneur section covering the country’s startups and entrepreneurs
- Australia: Wise global fintech firm launche ‘Wise 20 Under 20’, for the first time this year allowing Australian entrepreneurs to pitch alongside those from the UK and EU
- A video round-up of 16 recent fintech and banking technology news headlines, at-a-glance and QR coded to connect you to the online articles behind each headline
- South Korea: Gameper launches Bitro P2P cryptocurrency trading app, with payment methods including bank transfer, mobile gift cards, e-cards and mobile points
- Thailand: Opening new cryptocurrency accounts may require in-person machine verification of identity once new Anti-Money Laundering Office regulation kicks in
- Download: Digital Dollar Project – Exploring a United States Central Bank Digital Currency – Proposed Pilot Programs (pdf)
- Philippines: Bayad bills payment firm gains central bank Electronic Money Issuer license, allowing users to soon be able to pay over 1000 different bills by app
- China’s Alibaba backs South African telco group Vodacom’s ‘super app’ launch, providing peer-to-peer and QR payments, alongside loans and online shopping
- ICYMI: Jay-Z and Andreessen Horowitz back $19M investment in Bitski, platform simplifying creation, purchase and sale of non-fungible tokens
- SPACs: ‘Of the 41 special purpose acquisition companies…since the start of 2020… 18 have more than halved, and several are down by more than 80%. The average decline is 39%’
Fintech news in April 2021
- ICYMI: Rewire fintech gains $20M Series B with cross-border online banking services focusing on SEA expatriate workers and OFWs worldwide
- Inaugural Visa Accelerator Program in Asia Pacific selects 5 startups for development, working in open banking, real-time payments and more
- ICYMI: AB InBev Beer Garage APAC & Africa Hub to launch 3 editions of BudStart Global Accelerator 2021 programme for startups – Global Fintech, APAC and Africa
- Fintech: A video snapshot of recent fintech and banking technology news headlines, outlining developments across SE Asia and Oceania
- “From payments and lending to insurance and checking accounts, Amazon is attacking financial services from every angle without even applying to be a conventional bank…”
- Download: Pulse of Fintech H2 2020, from KPMG (pdf)
- ICYMI: South African lender Nedbank launches Mastercard-backed service, Money Message, allowing payments via WhatsApp
- Asia FinTech Awards set for 28th April, live-streamed online
- ICYMI: Rewire fintech gains $20M Series B with cross-border online banking services focusing on SEA expatriate workers and OFWs worldwide
- Inaugural Visa Accelerator Program in Asia Pacific selects 5 startups for development, working in open banking, real-time payments and more
- Fintech: A video snapshot of recent fintech and banking technology news headlines, outlining developments across SE Asia and Oceania
- “From payments and lending to insurance and checking accounts, Amazon is attacking financial services from every angle without even applying to be a conventional bank…”
- Download: Pulse of Fintech H2 2020, from KPMG (pdf)
- Asia FinTech Awards set for 28th April, live-streamed online
- Bank of Japan launches first phase of experimenting with a central bank digital currency, testing technical feasibility of core functions and features
- South Korea: Klaytn blockchain firm partners with ConsenSys to work towards a Korean central bank digital currency, a digital won
- Bank of Thailand announces intention to develop a retail central bank digital currency, provisionally aiming for trials in Q2 2022
- Download: Central Bank Digital Currency – The Future of Payments for Corporates, from the Bank of Thailand’s Project Inthanon (pdf)
- ICYMI: UK launches central bank digital currency taskforce with the Bank of England to investigate the potential of a digitally-issued currency
- “Fintech lending is at peak proliferation in China. Among the top 50 most popular apps…33 offer lending services in two main categories – payday loans and consumer credit services”
- China: Huawei acquires Shenzhen payments firm, gaining payments license in likely move into mobile financial services
- PayPal to establish e-wallet services in China, focusing on cross-border payments in attempt to avoid direct competition with e-payments giants WeChat and AliPay
- China: Shenzhen Tengyin gains $15.3M led by Tencent with WeChat-based client acquisition and marketing solutions for retail banks
- Cryptocurrency: A round-up of crypto, digital currency and payments news headlines from the past month, touching on CBDCs, NFTs and more
- ICYMI: US Federal Reserve chairman states “…the risk that we keep our eyes on the most now is cyber risk”
- India: United Payments Interface hits $50M in value with 2.3BN in digital transactions
- India: M1xchange raises $10M in part from Amazon’s new $250M Smbhav Fund with MSME invoice discounting platform
- India: A look at ToneTag, enabling offline payments in areas with low internet connectivity using sound waves, backed by Amazon and Mastercard
- Japan: Minna Bank, digital banking arm of Fukuoka Financial Group, expected to launch in May, partnered with Accenture and running on Google cloud infrastructure
- Japan: A look at how some municipalities are embracing digital currency, launching community-focused digital money initiatives to boost local economy and identity
- Japan: Paidy buy-now-pay-later provider completes Series D, raising $120M with more than 5M consumer accounts and 7K company accounts
- Malaysia: Bank Negara Malaysia may assign up to 5 digital banking licenses by Q1 2022, favouring applications that focus on ‘unserved and underserved’ Malaysians
- Malaysia: 40% stake in Tranglo cross-border payments firm acquired by Ripple blockchain payments giant
- Philippines: A look at GInvest from GCash, digital investment platform allowing Filipinos to explore investing, direct from their mobile phone
- Philippines: Plentina ‘buy now, pay later’ startup raises $2.2M with instalment loans that can be used and repaid using e-wallets
- Philippines: An overview of Tonik, digital-only neobank in the 3-largest economy in SE Asia where 71% of the 72M adult population are unbanked
- Philippines: More on the Level Up program launched by Indonesia’s Xendit, accelerator focused on boosting digital payments for SMEs
- Download: Singapore Fintech Report 2021, from Fintech News Network (pdf)
- Singapore: Friz fintech raises 6-figure seed round from Y Combinator, 500 Durians and others with financial management platform for freelancers, run by ex-Mastercard exec
- Singapore: Regtank shortlisted as a finalist for FinTech Intel’s Asia FinTech Awards 2021 with one-stop solutions simplifying compliance around KYC and transactions
- ICYMI: Clubhouse launches creator payments system, partnering Stripe for processing, with 100% of donations going to creators
- ICYMI: Twitter may be exploring new option to allow users to donate to people for their tweets, direct from profiles, via Tip Jar or similar
- Vietnam: Fundiin buy-now-pay-later startup gains backing led by 1982 Ventures and Zone Startups Ventures, helping merchants offer customers monthly instalments
- Vietnam: Gimo fintech gains seed funding from ThinkZone Ventures, BK Fund and angel investors with focus on underbanked workers, providing early access to earned wages
- Vietnam: “Mobile Money on a trial basis will create a precedent for applying the sandbox mechanism to other services and new professions to appear in digital society.”
- Japan: Paidy BNPL firm launches Paidy Link mobile wallet integration feature, partnering with PayPal and allowing users to pay for purchases in monthly instalments
- Sri Lanka: DirectPay fintech solution takes Best Disruptor 2021 award at National Ingenuity Awards 2021 with home-grown digital payments services and ecosystem
- ICYMI: Visa begins settling transactions in USD Coin, US dollar-pegged cryptocurrency; users of partner service don’t need to first convert USDC tokens to US$
- Reserve Bank of India to invite license applications for New Umbrella Entity, under which companies would create and operate retail payment systems nationwide
- Indonesia: Pluang raises $20M with app-based investment and wealth management services, integrating with super-apps Bukalapak, Gojek and Dana
- Philippines: An intro to Peddlr, smart Point Of Sales app aiming to assist MSMEs by recording sales, logging expenses and giving better understanding of business performance
- India: A look at VernacularAI’s voice assistant VIVA, capable of understanding 16 languages and over 160 dialects, and currently being implemented in banks across rural India
- Bank of Thailand announces intention to develop a retail central bank digital currency, provisionally aiming for trials in Q2 2022
- Download: Central Bank Digital Currency – The Future of Payments for Corporates, from the Bank of Thailand’s Project Inthanon (pdf)
- India: “Digital payments could account for 71.7% of the total payments volume by 2025, leaving cash and cheques at 28.3%…”
- Download: Cryptocurrency – Looking Back on 2020 and 2021 Predictions, via @cryptocom (pdf)
- Download: Bloomberg Crypto Outlook, April 2021 Edition (pdf)
- South Korea: Klaytn blockchain firm partners with ConsenSys to work towards a Korean central bank digital currency, a digital won
- Digital Securities & Tokenization Summit set for May 19-20, a virtual conference focusing on the implementation of blockchain in traditional finance
- Download: PwC CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) Global Index, 1st edition (pdf)
- ICYMI: Tesla now accepts Bitcoin as payment option in the US, with company retaining Bitcoin rather than converting to USD
- Vietnam: Mobile Money likely to launch in Q2 2021, providing telco customers with cashless method to pay for small-value goods and services
- Australia’s Finder acquires Singapore’s GoBear brand and 7-country presence, aiming to grow Finder presence as a key financial comparison platform in SE Asia
- India’s Pine Labs merchant payments firm acquires Singapore’s Fave loyalty cashback startup for $45M, gaining QR-based offline payments with sights on SEA expansion
- ICYMI: Bank of Russia plans to unveil prototype for ‘digital ruble’ design in December, running on distributed ledger technology with central bank control
- Hong Kong: 4 e-payment providers chosen to operate city’s HK$36BN digital voucher scheme in bid to boost economic growth
- Indonesia: Bukalapak e-commerce giantis reportedly backed in $234M round led by Microsoft, with cloud, digital skills training and digital banking initiatives coming
- Non-fungible tokens: How do you regulate a non-conventional marketplace?
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