Fintech Headlines
February 2020
Startup News Asia’s collection of February 2020 fintech news, banking tech news and digital payments news from across South and SE Asia, Australia and NZ, with wider-world items included to provide reference, points of interest and need-to-know industry insights.
The fintech news collection below represents a ‘wide angle’ overview of the fintech space, rather than one focused on a particular sub-area of banking technology news; bitcoin and cryptocurrency news is gathered separately, as is our blockchain news summary, both listed in other tech news.
- EasyEuro gains $4M to launch neobank for cross-border transactions between Europe and Asia, featuring mobile wallet and multi-currency banking account
- While digitization and advanced data analytics are creating opportunities for Asian banks, they also render long-standing business models obsolete…
- Apple Pay currently accounts for around 5% of global card transactions, and is on track to handle 10% of payments by 2025
- Wells Fargo invests $5M in UK’s Elliptic in move towards blocking crypto-related activities around money laundering, terror fundraising, fraud and financial crimes
- Visa execs lay out roadmap to displacing cash and checks globally, by digitizing payments through click to pay, tap to pay, digital wallets and cross-border flows
- ICYMI: Fingopay biometric payments firm completes bank-to-bank transaction trials using Hitachi infra red-based VeinID technology
- ICYMI: MoneyGram unveils FastSend, feature allowing users to send money to recipient accounts via mobile phone numbers instead of account numbers
- ICYMI: Paxos crypto startup, with Credit Suisse and Instinet broker-dealer, claims world-first live blockchain-based settlement of US equities
- National Stock Exchange of Australia to partner iSignthis financial institution to develop DLT platform to compete with the ASX for digital securities trading
- ICYMI: US Federal Reserve is now conducting research on distributed ledger technology and its potential for a central bank digital currency
- People’s Bank of China has filed more than 80 patents related to plans to launch a digital currency, giving an outline to Beijing’s ambitions
- A look at Electroneum’s unbanked-focused AnyTask freelancer platform, allowing buyers to pay via debit or credit, with providers paid in cryptocurrency
- ICYMI: 300M Barcelona FC fans to have use of crypto tokens via Chiliz blockchain startup, giving fans voting rights, gifts and club merchandise
- Cryptocurrency: Telegram vs Facebook – two competing visions for how we will send and receive money online
- Cryptocurrency: “Without cash, there is ‘no chance for the kind of dignity-preserving privacy that undergirds an open society'”
- CoinDesk’s Crypto Lending 101 – who participates, as well as the advantages and risks of crypto lending
- ICYMI: US Federal Reserve is investigating potential for central bank digital currency as the backbone for a new, secure real-time payments and settlements system
- ICYMI: Near 1/2 of Sweden’s retailers expect to stop taking cash payments by 2025; whilst 97% still accept cash, only 18% of all transactions actually involve cash
- Reserve Bank of India proposes wide-remit alternative digital retail payments organisation set up, manage and operate new payment systems
- India: Uber establishes Uber Money team in Hyderabad to look at real-time earnings, debit accounts and cards for drivers, Uber Wallet and credit card for riders
- India: An intro to Yabx, financial behavioural modeling startup using AI and ML, used by financial institutions to provide credit for the underserved population
- India: PhoneParLoan fintech startup raises funds with short-tenure microloans for salaried workers
- Indonesia: Traveloka, SE Asia’s largest online travel firm, launches second credit card, this time partnering with state-owned Bank Mandiri
- A brief look at Japan’s moves towards providing financial services for the unbanked population of expats and migrant workers
- An overview of Japan’s hesitancy around, and likely moves towards, a central bank digital currency
- South Korea: Financial Services Commission and Seoul Metropolitan Government commit near $16M over 4 years to train fintech specialists
- Malaysia: Axiata Group telecoms firm in talks with 11 potential partners, including banks, to jointly bid for a digital banking licence
- Myanmar: Get All Myanmar digital commerce platform to acquire local fintech firm Daung Capital to provide unified solution to micro-entrepreneurs
- Pakistan: JS Bank partners UK’s PaySend international money transfer startup to launch Freelance Wallet for freelancers working in Pakistan
- Pakistan: Sadapay preps for launch of free mobile wallet and physical debit card on the Mastercard network, focusing on serving the underbanked population
- Philippines: Digital-only CIMB Bank Philippines partners Jumio, AI-driven identity and authentication firm, for onboarding and KYC
- Philippines: Tonik Financial raises $6M to underpin the launch of new Tonik Digital Bank, the country’s first digital-only
- An intro to Singapore-based Jenfi, aiming to expand access to small and medium business loans for owners in Southeast Asia
- Singapore: Clear secures $13M with smart B2B contracts built on cryptographic methods, allowing ease of execution while retaining data control
- ICYMI: UK’s AiX startup negotiates first Bitcoin-US dollar trade using proprietary AI system that communicates with human traders at banks via chat services
- ICYMI: National Bank of Egypt partners blockchain-based payments firm Ripple to establish new channels for inward remittances
- India: Yap secures $1.4M in angel funding with banking and payment products-focused API platform
- ICYMI: Residents of Switzerland’s ski resort of Zermatt now able to settle bills for taxes and other gov’t services using bitcoin
- ICYMI: Visa credit card giant grants Coinbase ‘principal membership’ status, allowing the firm to now issue Bitcoin, Ether and XRP debit cards
- ICYMI: Near half the revenue generated by Square’s Cash App in Q4 2019 came from bitcoin activities
- Australia: Perth Mint partners Security Matters for blockchain-based gold supply chain traceability project
- ICYMI: Sweden’s central bank, The Riksbank, launches year-long pilot project of proposed digital currency, the e-krona
- Taiwan’s Asia Pacific Telecom and a US telecoms carrier trial Carrier Blockchain Study Group platform for cross-carrier blockchain consumer payment
- South Korea: Litecoin, world’s 7th-largest cryptocurrency, gains MeconCash h partnership, enabling fiat withdrawals at over 13000 ATMs
- Taiwan’s CoolBitX crypto wallet and security startup raises $16.7M to make cryptocurrency more banking regulations-friendly
- Japan: Daiko Holdings takes controlling stake in Bitgate cryptocurrency exchange parent, in step to keep up with competitor crypto moves
- South Korea: Ministry of Science and ICT hits pause on further technological developments in their blockchain sandbox program until crypto policy is passed
- Fast-growing US-based cryptocurrency lending startup BlockFi preps for Singapore office opening to focus on Asia Pacific institutional clients
- Taipei Exchange receives authorization to formulate regulations governing issuing and trading of STOs, security token offerings
- Shopify e-commerce giant to join Facebook’s Libra Association, ignoring the departure of eBay, Visa, Stripe, PayPal, Mastercard and others
- People’s Bank of China has filed more than 80 patents related to plans to launch a digital currency, giving an outline to Beijing’s ambitions
- Australia: SocietyOne peer-to-peer lender secures $15M, establishes a $100M funding warehouse facility with Nat’l Australia Bank, and preps for IPO
- Australia: Perth Mint Gold Token, world’s first sovereign gold digital token, commences trading on KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange
- Central banks of Indonesia and The Philippines sign MOU seeking development of secure, efficient, and reliable payment system, and to promote digital innovation
- Cambodia: Singapore’s PLMP Venture Capital awarded Asset and Fund Mgmt licence by SEC of Cambodia as part of wider 10-year aim to incubate 10K SMEs
- Indonesia’s ride-hailing giant, Grab, acquires Singapore’s Bento Invest robo-advisory startup, aiming for a rebrand as GrabInvest to move into retail wealth managment
- India: Ketto crowdfunding platform raises $4.2M with focus on fundraising of social, creative, and personal causes
- Philippine Fintech Festival set for May 20-21 in Metro Manila
- Central banks of UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada and Japan, with European Central Bank and Bank for Int’l Settlements set April for first digital currency meeting
- Why cryptocurrency? “…imagine..that there was a base metal as scarce as gold with one special property: Can be transported over a communications channel”
- Bitcoin treasure hunt launches on Minecraft via SatoshiQuest mod
- Singapore: World Blockchain STO Summit set for February 26th, with focus on securitized token offerings
- ICYMI: Mastercard to open Cyber Resilience Centre in Europe, aiming to foster cybersecurity collaboration between public and private sectors
- Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy S20 range continues crypto focus with secure processor to protect PINs, passwords, patterns and Blockchain Private Keys
- ICYMI: UNICEF Kazakhstan office deploys ethereum-based system for processing internal payments such as fund transfers to local education programs
- Australia: An intro to Cheq app, launched to provide an on-demand alternative to payday loans
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