With evolving lifestyles, growing awareness of health and fitness, and medical advancement enabling more people to live longer, retirement will increasingly require a bigger and more stable nest egg. To help people better understand their retirement needs and plan for their golden years, DBS Hong Kong announced the launch of Face Your Future, an experience aimed at raising awareness of the importance of retirement planning. “Planning for the future and retirement is never easy, and is even more challenging given the current uncertainties surrounding the pandemic. As life expectancy increases, and lifestyle needs change, it is important to know how…

Doing business in a modern economy like Hong Kong means digitally connecting with people, organisations and systems on a global scale. Since the birth of the internet, companies have endeavoured to increase their digital presence. The rise of websites, social media and digitization of platforms facilitating the exchange of money such as trading stocks and shares has exponentially grown the global economy. However, this brought about new challenges and problems to overcome. One such problem is digital identity. How do we know who we are dealing with online? In 2008, the world went into shock when Lehman Brothers collapsed. This…

Historically, regions such as Hong Kong and similar nations in southeast Asia have been loath to accept the merits of fintech. However, this trend has reversed markedly of late, with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority handing out licenses to eight new virtual banks as a way of encouraging further innovation in this space. Despite this, established lenders are increasingly optimistic about their futures in the fintech era, thanks largely to their continued collaboration with financial technology startups and willingness to evolve in the digital age. In this post, we’ll look at how the fintech market has evolved and expanded in…

In 2019, cryptocurrency-focused hedge funds’ assets under management (AUM) doubled to US$2 billion, and the average per fund jumped to US$44 million from US$21.9 million the prior year, according to a research by PwC and digital asset investment firm Elwood Asset Management Services. The 2020 Crypto Hedge Fund Report, released in May, notes a correlation between the growth of the sector with the price of bitcoin, pointing out that almost two thirds of the current ~150 active crypto hedge funds were launched in 2018 or 2019. In 2018, the price of Bitcoin rose by more than 1,200%, while in 2019,…

With a mushrooming delinquency rate and investment fraud allegations, South Korea’s rapidly growing peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry has come under scrutiny. Over the past couple of years, the delinquency rate, or the percentage of loans that are past due, has snowballed within South Korea’s P2P lending sector. As of late January 2020, the average delinquency rate of 45 P2P lending firms stood at 9.32%, up from 8.43% a month earlier, according to the Korea P2P Finance Association. As a comparison, the average delinquency rate was only a mere 0.42% in late 2016 when P2P was first introduced in South Korea.…

Temenos, the banking software company, announced that Next Commercial Bank (Next Bank), has selected Temenos Transact to power its launch as one of Taiwan’s first virtual bank. Cloud-native, cloud-agnostic they said that Temenos Transact will deliver rich, pre-configured banking functionality and compliance to support Next Bank’s rapid launch to market in 2020. Next Bank is backed by local investment from Taiwan telecom operator, Chunghwa Telecom, among others, and will launch with capital around USD 332 million. The virtual bank is among the first batch of entities granted a license from the Taiwan Financial Supervisory Commission to operate a virtual bank.…

Ground X, the blockchain affiliate of South Korean Internet giant Kakao and developer of Klaytn, today launched a blockchain-based digital asset wallet service called Klip. Available in KakaoTalk, a mobile messaging application used by more than 90% of the South Korean population, Klip gives users the opportunity to experience digital assets on their mobile devices. Users can sign in to Klip with their existing Kakao accounts. Klip defines a digital asset as any information or content that has value. Typical examples include gaming items, cyber money, and mileage points. Thanks to the advancement of blockchain technology in recent years, online…

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic turmoil have put a brake on merchant adoption of cashless payments, according to a new report by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The Japanese government launched a cashless incentive program last year to sustain spending levels following a consumption tax hike as well as to encourage electronic payment acceptance leading up to the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. The program, which runs from October 2019 to June 2020, offers consumers rebates of between 2% and 5% for purchases made via credit cards, debit cards or e-money. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the program provides…

Joint Electronic Teller Services Limited (JETCO) today announced the rollout of Hong Kong’s first cross-bank cardless withdrawal service. Customers of participating JETCO member banks can take out cash instantly from any JETCO automatic teller machine (ATM) that supports this service by scanning the QR code on the ATM screen with their mobile banking apps. At this stage, the service can be supported by the ATMs of eleven JETCO member banks. Customers can conduct cardless withdrawals from the ATMs of these banks that carry a “Cardless Withdrawal” identifier. In addition, three banks, including The Bank of East Asia, Limited, Industrial and…

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) today announced the appointment of Bénédicte Noella Nolens as head of the BIS Innovation Hub Centre in Hong Kong SAR for a three-year term from 1 July 2020. “I am delighted with Bénédicte’s appointment. Her deep knowledge and experience in fintech and financial regulation will significantly strengthen the Hub’s mission to ensure that innovation is a positive force in the global financial system,” said Benoît Cœuré, Head of the Innovation Hub. Ms Nolens has more than 20 years’ experience in financial services, with a focus on fintech, innovation and regulation. During her tenure at the Hong…

Stripe, the online payment infrastructure provider powering the likes Amazon, Facebook, Shopify, Zoom, Slack today announced opening of an engineering office in Tokyo, which will focus on building more features and capabilities to meet the specific needs of Japanese businesses. This includes supporting additional domestic payment methods at scale, such as bank transfers and Konbini payments. To support this growing momentum in the Enterprise space, Stripe today announced the hiring of Apple veteran Daisuke Aranami as Representative Director and Head of Revenue and Growth for Stripe in Japan. Under his leadership, Stripe will invest in its go-to-market team to address…

WeChat Pay, Tencent’s mobile payments system integrated into the WeChat super-app, has told its users that it will be giving them a credit rating, called “Payment Points.” The system leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and uses users’ data collected from the platform including personal and credit records, spending habits and other factors to determine a user’s “credibility,” reports Asia Times Financial. The system will also be applied to online gamers, providing them with a “trust” value. Tencent hopes the system will be adopted by small commercial institutions including banks for personal credit evaluation, the report says. Tencent, which received approval from…

The COVID-19 outbreak has taken a toll on startup funding with fintech investment dropping to levels not seen since 2016 and 2017, according to CB Insights’ State of Fintech Q1’20 Report. Q1’20 VC-backed fintech activity declined to US$6.1 billion across 404 deals, making the quarter the worst Q1 since 2016 for fintech deals and the worst Q1 for funding since 2017, the company found. China took the biggest hit, witnessing its worst quarter for fintech funding since 2015 with just 29 deals totaling US$175 million. Europe was the only region to record growth in fintech funding, which rose 27% quarter-over-quarter…

Banks in Hong Kong are embracing fintech, with innovations relating to mobile banking, open banking (APIs), machine learning and predictive analytics, customer identification and authentication, and cloud computing, being commonly applied by over 40% to up to two thirds of the incumbent banks, according to a new report by the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research (HKIMR), the research arm and subsidiary of the Hong Kong Academy of Finance (AoF). The report, based on a survey of 37 incumbent banks and eight virtual banks covering a combined 80% of Hong Kong’s total customer deposits and 75% of total…

With businesses scrambling to recoup their losses due to the recent pandemic, digital e-commerce wasn’t left unscathed. Hong Kong’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), which rely on online marketing, mobile money, and government resources to sell products internationally, have had to rethink sales strategies. Yet, that wouldn’t have been enough to keep businesses afloat if the government hadn’t introduced two measures to the SME export financing scheme. A 90% credit financing guarantee. This means that loans of up to HK$6 million could receive extensions of as long as 5 years. Even if the business has been operating for less than…

The University of Hong Kong and Standard Chartered Bank jointly announced the establishment of a Fintech Academy with the latter offering HKD$ 60 million to support the launch of this initiative. The HKU-SCF Fintech academy is said to leverage the combined strength of academics of HKU and industry expertise of Standard Chartered Bank to enhance the way fintech is taught and researched. The newly launched academy is hosted by the Department of Computer Science of the Faculty of Engineering and strongly supported by the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Business and Economics. According to their statement, in the…

Virtual reality (VR) is one of the industries that has seen a boost and will continue to do well. Pundits say virtual reality and augmented reality will cause a significant boost to global economic growth over the next decade. The professional services conglomerate believes VR could add as much as $1.5 trillion, or 1.8% GDP, to the global economy by 2030. This is all very well, but it’s not that straight-forward and, despite all of the positive assessments from analysts, the market is still in a precarious position after a number of setbacks in recent months. In October, the BBC…

The newly-released TransUnion Q1 2020 Industry Insights Report shows that COVID-19 has severely amplified the impact of the 2019 Hong Kong recession, and started to shape the consumer credit market in a number of distinct ways. With economic conditions worsening and incomes negatively affected by the global pandemic, Hong Kong consumers have been pulling back on their spending and have reduced their appetite for credit more generally. At the same time, as delinquencies have started to rise, especially in the major unsecured lending categories of credit cards, unsecured personal loans and unsecured revolving lines, lenders have been tightening their underwriting.…

Joint Electronic Teller Services Limited (JETCO) today announced its partnership with insurtech start-up GoLion to offer insurance APIs via the JETCO APIX (API exchange) platform. At this stage, these APIs cover over 30 insurance products, including travel, saving, term life, hospital cash, personal accident, helper and study aboard student insurance plans from three major insurers in Hong Kong. While currently some eCommerce providers offer insurance products on their platforms, what the buyer usually gets after completing the payment process is an email with a redemption code or e-voucher for redemption on the insurer’s website. This is mainly due to licensing requirement…

Virtual banking operator WeLab announced today that its’ #HKCashDrop is open for application today, on a first come first serve basis. The initiative aims to deliver the HK$10,000 government subsidy in to the people’s hand immediately ahead of the proposed July or August timeline According to their statement, it only takes 3 minutes to apply online and 1 day for the funds to be disbursed to their account. The HK$10,000 loan is provided by WeLend which is a member of the WeLab group and it is 5-months interest free loan. After 5 months, the loan becomes an interest-bearing 12-month personal…