Financial technology and banking technology news from across Asia in July 2020
The article headlines below are a wide-focus look at financial technology news across the month of July 2020, prioritising coverage of the broad Asia-Pacific region.
Items cover core fintech news such as digital payments, and also touch on larger items such as central bank digital currency projects, cryptocurrency, and the use of blockchain tech in the financial sector.
Each headline below is linked directly to its online news article; each item below was also delivered in Startup News Asia’s daily feeds on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and via our startup news app.
- Inclusive Fintech 50 applications close July 10, seeking early-stage fintechs driving financial inclusion and resilience globally
- ICYMI: Pan-European consortium of twenty major banks to create payment standard to rival Visa, Mastercard, and tech firms like Google, Apple, AliPay, WeChat Pay
- Fintech in Asia-Pacific: An overview of the fintech, digital banking and digital currency headlines from the month past in hardcopy – read online or offline
- Fintech in Asia: A brief 3-page, offline-to-online snapshot of June 2020’s fintech and digital banking-related news
- Fintech: A brief 2-minute video snapshot of the last month’s fintech, banking technology and digital currency-related news, focusing where possible on Asia
- ICYMI: Opera web browser parent firm to acquire Lithuania’s Fjord Bank as part of a plan to expand further into financial services
- A brief overview of how 5G may change consumer banking with improvements in mobile services, security and more
- Cambodia Fintech Association and Cambodia Association of Finance and Technology merge to create new, single organisation
- Visa crypto projects head: “I’d argue that central bank digital currency is one of the most important trends for the future of money and payments over the next decade”
- ICYMI: Bank of Lithuania launches e-shop in preparation for online sale of world-first blockchain-based digital collector coins, LBCOINs
- India: ChitMonks gains $650K with blockchain-based ‘chit fund’ management platform allowing regulator oversight
- Global FinTech Fest India virtual event set for July 22-23
- An intro to Indonesia’s Akulaku, delivering online credit, wealth management and digital banking to 6M users and counting
- Indonesia: PAYFAZZ fintech reportedly secures $53M, focusing on bank agents who conduct transactions on behalf of unbanked and underbanked customers
- Indonesia: A brief intro to the 11 fintech and banking tech startups selected for the 3rd batch of SYNRGY Accelerator program from Bank Central Asia
- Indonesia: AwanTunai peer-to-peer lending startup raises $20M debt facility with point-of-sale financing and mobile consumer credit for micro-merchants
- Bank of Japan head describes digital yen move as a top priority, seeing China’s CBDC developments as a potential future national security concern
- Malaysia: Instapay Technologies gains partnership with Mastercard to offer electronic wallet accounts to migrant workers and the unbanked
- Philippines: tonik, the country’s first digital-only neobank, partnered by Mastercard to accelerate financial inclusion, following tonik gaining bank license
- Singapore: Qashier gains S$1.2M seed funding with smart point-of-sale terminals, combining payments hub, software and open platform for 3rd-party apps
- Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Global FinTech Hackcelerator 2020 applications close July 7th
- Singapore: Percipient raises $5M with TWINNTM product allowing corporates to implement AI digital services without retiring their legacy systems
- ICYMI: Singapore monetary authority proposes New Omnibus Act for the Financial Sector to expand regulation of locally-based crypto businesses operating in overseas markets
- Sri Lanka: Central Bank’s Monetary Board considering 3 shortlisted tech firms to develop proof-of-concept around blockchain-based, shared KYC facility
- Singapore: A brief intro to the 15 startups receiving funding on graduating from Antler venture builder’s 4th Singapore program, spanning AI, HR, fintech and more
- ICYMI: Israel’s Kirobo blockchain startup claims to have created ‘undo’ function for cryptocurrency transactions sent to wrong wallet address
- Australia: Sempo blockchain startup secures $1.6M from European Commission for Oxfam partnership focused on aid distribution to unbanked populations
- China: Binance blockchain research institute partners state-run Zhongshan Beidon supply chains firm to jointly develop digital infrastructure for SMEs
- Indonesia: An intro to 5 of the country’s noteworthy blockchain projects, working in security, auditability, transparency, traceability and beyond
- Singapore: dltledgers blockchain startup in advanced talks to raise $9M Series A with focus on cross-border trade digitisation
- ICYMI: Morgan Stanley has blocked interns in China from logging on remotely to the bank’s virtual network, citing concerns about cybersecurity rules and system vulnerability
- Indonesia: An intro to BukuWarung, bookkeeping app focused on Indonesia[s 60M small store ‘micromerchants’
- ICYMI: Lithuania to launch LBCOIN, its own central bank-backed digital token – 24 thousand to go on sale shortly
- ICYMI: US Federal Court ruling states definition of money is ‘a medium of exchange, method of payment, or store of value…and Bitcoin is these things’
- Philippines: State-owned Overseas Filipino Bank becomes first digital-only bank, and the country’s first branchless government bank
- ICYMI: Google partnered by Deutsche Bank for 10-year partnership around Google providing cloud computing capabilities to Germany’s largest lender
- Singapore’s StashAway digital wealth management firm gains $16M backing from Australia’s Square Peg VC firm
- India’s Zeta fintech startup expands neo-bank platform-as-a-service to The Philippines and Vietnam
- Download: Cryptodollars, The Story So Far (pdf)
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