A recent research by the Businessfinancing.co.uk, a business finance news publisher, discovered that female startup founders are more likely to experience negative attitudes during funding pitches. This happens at a disproportionately larger scale compared to their male counterparts. This claim is supported by a report by the Academy of Management entitled “We Ask Men to Win and Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Funding”. The report “proposes that the gap originates with a gender bias in the questions that investors pose to entrepreneurs”. It states that female founders are more likely to be asked during funding…

Widely known for its massive fintech community of close to 400 companies, digital tech park Cyberport is now rapidly emerging as a powerhouse for insurance innovation. More than 30 insurtech companies have chosen Cyberport as their home, including Hong Kong’s four licensed virtual insurance providers Bowtie, Avo Insurance, OneDegree and ZA Insure. These have brought to the market innovative and affordable insurance products, including voluntary health insurance policies with competitive prices, e-wallet insurance packages, pet insurance policies, and health insurance plans targeting specific illnesses. Cyberport’s rising insurtech community In addition to the four virtual insurance providers, there are other startups…

Livi Bank announced the launch of its virtual banking services, making it the fourth virtual bank open to public in Hong Kong. Livi was among the eight entities that were awarded the virtual banking license by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Backed by Bank of China (Hong Kong), a Chinese e-commerce company JD.com and Jardine Matheson, Livi throws its hat into the ring with WeLab Bank, ZA Bank and Airstar Bank in Hong Kong’s virtual banking race. Livi’s mobile app integrated the UnionPay QR Payment and Faster Payment System (FPS) features for making and receiving real-time transfers, as well as…

WeLab Bank, a homegrown virtual bank licensed by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, has amassed a total of over 10,000 applications since launching to the public less than 10 days ago. The demographic of their customers ranged between 18 to 83, with over 70% of their customers falling in the age category of 20 to 39 years old. Upon account opening, a WeLab debit card is available for immediate use in the form of a virtual card in its app. A physical numberless debit card, issued in partnership with Mastercard, would be available shortly after. WeLab decided to extend the…

InvestHK has unveiled the Global Fast Track Programme, a business-driven programme within Hong Kong Fintech Week, to help local and global fintech enterprises leverage Hong Kong’s fintech opportunities to scale business and accelerate innovation. The Fast Track programme plugs fintech enterprises directly into Hong Kong’s diverse ecosystem of regulators, business leaders, corporates and investors to propel their ventures across Hong Kong and in the Greater Bay Area as well as Asia. “The strength of the Fast Track programme is proof of Hong Kong’s resilient, diverse and growing fintech ecosystem, which provides fintech enterprises with the ideal test ground and launchpad…

Just like in almost every other industry, financial institutions have been planning and implementing increased digitalisation for some years. However, the coronavirus crisis and resulting nationwide restrictions have undoubtedly accelerated the rate at which new tech and processes have been launched. Banking Circle research commissioned amongst financial institutions across a number of geographies just before COVID-19 closed the shutters on much of the global economy aimed to look at the changing trends in the development, delivery, and support of banking services for businesses. Once the potential impact became clearer, we adapted the research to focus on the influence COVID-19 is…

The Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub (BISIH) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) launched the “TechChallenge – Digitising Trade Finance” initiative to highlight the potential for new technologies to enhance trade finance mechanisms. The initiative is administered by the Deloitte Asia Pacific Blockchain Lab in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Institute of International Finance, the People’s Bank of China and the Wolfsberg Group. HKMA and BISIH have identified potential areas of focus which include connecting trade finance platforms, tech-driven trade finance inclusion for SMEs and TradeTech infrastructure for emerging markets. “The TechChallenge…

Huawei announced that it will be hosting its APAC Financial Industry Storage Summit 2020 on the 13th August 2020. The high-level summit is targeted at keeping the C-level from banks informed on the latest trends, developments and challenges in data storage. This is becoming increasingly crucial as the world rapidly becomes more digital, thanks largely to ubiquitous connectivity and an entire generation of people who are digital natives. There are no signs of the digital revolution slowing down as many of the markets in Asia-Pacific including Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines have all moved towards introducing regulations to facilitate the…

A study by Nielsen has found that consumers are quite wary of personal loan services despite being regarded as one of the popular market entry products for virtual banks. According to its Personal Finance Monitor that analyses customer’s perspective towards virtual banking, only a meager 18% of the customers claimed that they would consider applying for loans from virtual banks in the future. Virtual banks could soften the blow by leveraging on credit card issuance as a way to lure in customers as over half of the respondents (54%) showed interest in virtual bank credit card applications, the report stated.…

WeLab Bank a homegrown virtual bank licensed by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (“HKMA”) publicly launches their banking services to the millions of individuals in Hong Kong. This follows their earlier pilot trial in April 2020, where they invited approximately 2,000 individual users from its waiting list which will consist of WeLab staff and their friends and families to test their services. WeLab Bank is a purely digital bank and customers can remotely open a WeLab account with $0 monthly fees. Customers of WeLab Bank can also apply for WeLab’s numberless debit card which was launched with Mastercard earlier this…

EMQ, Hong Kong-based financial settlement network, announced the issuance of US$20 million Series B preferred shares led by WI Harper Group. New and existing investors participated in the funding round including Abu Dhabi Capital, AppWorks, DG Ventures, Hard Yaka, Intudo Ventures, January Capital, Quest Venture Partners, SparkLabs Taipei, Vectr Fintech Partners, and VS Partners. EMQ will use the investment to further accelerate its international growth, product development and licensing activities across Asia, Europe and the Americas. “This new funding marks a significant milestone in our next phase of strategic growth as we continue to innovate and deliver a network infrastructure…

Deutsche Bank announced that it will enable fintech unicorn Airwallex to provide virtual account collections and API-enabled foreign exchange services in Japan and Hong Kong respectively. Already live in Japan, the solution will further allow Airwallex to process and convert cross-border payments made to its merchants based in China using virtual accounts and API technology. Through these services, merchants using Airwallex will not need to open bank accounts in the markets where their customers are based, thereby simplifying the entire payment process. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Hong Kong, Airwallex is a technology company that helps businesses move and…

Tricor formed a strategic partnership 3 Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong and Microsoft to unveil SPOT, a platform that enables electronic general meetings. The solution is said to be highly scalable, offering significant cost savings, reduce administrative time and effort, as well as enhance member engagement and transparency. They claimed that the solution complies with and observes all the requirements of HKEX Listing Rules and statutory regulations, seamlessly integrates the Register of Members, and facilitates proxy actions under CCASS to attend and vote online. Among its other features, SPOT also provides voting forms and proxy forms in the same…

Support and adoption of the Chinese national digital currency project, the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), is accelerating with now more than 20 companies having joined as partners. Only eight firms were originally announced, including four state-owned banks (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of China), the big three telcos (China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom) and Huawei. In April, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced that banks were conducting internal test of the digital currency in four cities, namely Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and Xiong’an, a new smart city…

Hong Kong is a bustling hub of FinTech activity. A core market in Asia, Hong Kong is also central to global FinTech operations. In 2020, the largest component of FinTech activity in Hong Kong is digital payments solutions, valued at $16,431M, compared to personal finance which makes up just $1,491M, and alternative financing at $190M. Fast forward projections to 2024, and digital payments are expected to top out at $24,670M, personal finance at $6,374M, and alternative financing at $268M. Cloud computing capabilities, AI, AR, and the Internet of Things are still in their infancy stages in Hong Kong, and the…

YAS Digital Limited (YDL), a Hong Kong-based regional insurtech venture, today unveiled a microinsurance marketplace in Hong Kong. They described the marketplace as one that “functions like an app store” and “offers a diverse and affordable range of products tailored to customer needs” Among its features is the YAS GPS Automated Insurance that enables contextual protection when customers are on the move, for example, they shared that if a customer is on a hiking trail the location-based technology with automatically enable insurance coverage for the customer. They also stated that it is built on an insurance blockchain protocol that they…

Ant Group, a leading provider of financial services technology, and the parent company of China’s largest mobile payments business Alipay, today officially launched AntChain, a new technology brand for the company’s blockchain-based solutions that also aggregates other digital technologies including AI, Internet of Things (IoT) and secure computation. “Since our inception, building trust has been core to our offer to customers,” said Eric Jing, Executive Chairman, Ant Group. “We believe in blockchain’s potential to redefine trust in the digital age, and in solving real-life problems for our customers.” Since 2015, Ant Group has been investing significantly in the…

Equinix, the global interconnection and data center company, has completed the third phase expansion of HK4, one of its five International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers in Hong Kong with an investment of US$51 million (approximately HK$364 million). HK4 provides increased capacity for customers in Hong Kong with this expansion phase. With an additional 1,000 cabinets added to the facility, HK4 now has a total capacity of 1,500 cabinets and will further add 3,000 cabinets in future phases. The acceleration in digital transformation continues to drive the demand for data centers and interconnection in Hong Kong. According to a recent market…

Episode Six, a next-generation financial technology provider, today announced that it has secured US$7 million of its Series A funding. The round was led by HSBC and includes investments from Mastercard and SBI Investment Co., Ltd., which first invested in Episode Six through its FinTech Business Innovation Fund in 2017. “Financial institutions and innovators in other industries like healthcare are beginning to realize the constraints of legacy technology, especially given the increasing demand for new products and streamlined efficiencies,” said Episode Six CEO John Mitchell. “We have developed financial technology which, via more than 500 APIs, facilitates that next level of configurability…

Ant Group, the parent company of China’s largest mobile payments business Alipay and leading provider of financial services technology, today announced that it has commenced the process of a concurrent initial public offering (“IPO”) on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR board (“SSE STAR” market) and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the “SEHK”). The listings will help the company accelerate its goal of digitizing the service industry in China and driving domestic demand, as well as position the company to develop global markets with partners and expand investment in technology and innovation. “The innovative measures implemented by SSE STAR…