Riskified, a software as a service fraud and chargeback prevention technology provider, has expanded its footprint in Japan and named Anthony Guercio as the Country Manager. With 20 years of enabling digital transformation in Japan and APAC, Guerciowill lead Riskified’s efforts to help Japanese merchants automate fraud management and safely and profitably grow their online business. Riskified’s machine learning platform leverages a global merchant network to analyse and provide real-time decisioning for card-not-present transactions, lifting approval rates and increasing online revenues. The company has already partnered with Japanese online entertainment site DMM.com to provide the latter its fraud prevention solution.…

Digital tech park Cyberport is collaborating with the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) to help tech companies to expand to Hong Kong or Dubai. Cyberport will facilitate Dubai startups with potential through various entrepreneurship programmes as well as business and operation support to set up in its business park. It will also facilitate Cyberport’s community startups and technology companies to expand to Dubai with funding and landing support. Additionally, Cyberport will also provide venue, facilities, operational and marketing support for co-organising seminars or events to create impact and promote Hong Kong and Dubai. Meanwhile, DFF will provide knowledge exchange through reports…

HSBC announced the launch of its new one-stop digital payment solution called HSBC Merchant Box for small-and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Hong Kong. Through HSBC Merchant Box, customers can activate HSBC Global Wallet to collect payments in AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, SGD and USD in as soon as a few minutes. They can choose to hold the funds in HSBC Global Wallet or transfer to their Business Integrated Accounts anytime. Payers can also send money to HSBC Merchant Box users using local addressable information. HSBC Merchant Box is a subscription-based service fully integrated with Business Internet Banking, with a range…

Japan’s venture capital (VC) market has grown strongly over the past years, rising fifteenfold in less than a decade, from a low point in 2012 at JPY 21.9 billion (US$168.8 million) to JPY 329 billion (US$2.5 billion) in 2021, data from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an American international affairs think tank show. Investors have poured significant capital into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) and fintech sectors, according to a 2022 report by Initial Enterprise, a startup data platform, leading both sectors to mature considerably and witness several startups go public. Japan’s fintech sector remains nevertheless filled with numerous fast-growing private companies…

The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Saudi Tadawul Group, Saudi’s stock exchange operator. Through the MoU, both the stock exchanges will explore cooperation in fintech, ESG and cross listings, as well as a number of other areas of interest. HKEX said in a statement that this MOU is a step closer towards enabling other areas of collaboration between Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong. Nicolas Aguzin, CEO of HKEX said, “Hong Kong and HKEX’s markets offer significant opportunities for international investors and corporates, including unrivalled connectivity to the Mainland Chinese markets…

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are innovative, agile and drive competition. However, they’re often shuffled to the back of the line when it comes to accessing credit. Lending to SMEs can be risky and time-consuming. Traditional financial institutions often require paperwork-heavy application processes and may find it difficult to execute credit risk decisioning without human intervention. Forty-four percent of SMEs need funding immediately to meet operating expenses, and 56% look to credit to grow their business. But when accessing credit quickly can mean the difference between a business flourishing or floundering, what are the options? Increasingly, disruptive lenders, including fintechs…

Hong Kong’s virtual bank ZA announced the appointment of Ronald Iu as its Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director. He succeeds Rockson Hsu who has stepped down to pursue other opportunities. Ronald joined ZA International, the parent company of ZA Bank, as Chief Strategy Officer in February 2022, and later became Chief Risk Officer of ZA Bank. The bank said that it will announce the appointment of a new Chief Risk Officer in due course. Ronald has over two decades of experience in banking and finance, ranging from risk management, sales and marketing to the development of innovative fintech products.…

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) intends to roll out new regulations on crypto-assets and stablecoins by either this year or in 2024. On 12 January 2022, the HKMA had issued a discussion paper on crypto-assets and stablecoins and invited feedback from stakeholders and received a total of 58 submissions in response from the industry, public bodies, business and professional organisations, and individuals. On the whole, HKMA said that the respondents were supportive of regulating stablecoins with a risk-based and agile approach in the conclusion summary of the discussion paper. The regulator will begin by regulating stablecoins backed by fiat…

South Korea’s fintech industry is set to get a boost this year onwards as the government plans to increase its financial support to the sector and launch new initiatives to help promising companies grow, scale and expand overseas. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) said in December 2022 that the size of the Fintech Innovation Fund will be increased from 500 billion won (US$380 million) to 1 trillion won (US$760 million) to support the fintech firms over the next four years. Along with this, the FSC said that the supply of fintech-related loans and guarantees through policy financial institutions like the…

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said that it will be shuttering its operations in Japan and its users has until 16 February to withdraw their assets. All customers can withdraw their fiat currency and cryptocurrency holdings to other crypto service providers, Coinbase Wallet or other self-hosted wallets. They can also liquidate their portfolio and withdraw Japanese Yen to their local bank account. Once the deadline has passed the remaining crypto assets held by Coinbase’s customers will be automatically converted to Japanese yen. After February 17th, Coinbase will deposit the remaining Japanese Yen balance with the Legal Affairs Bureau in accordance with legal…

South Korean peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform PeopleFund announced that it has raised an additional US$20 million led by existing investor Bain Capital. The round, which was open only to its existing investors, was joined by Access Ventures, CLSA Capital Partners Lending Ark Asia, D3 Jubilee Partners, 500 Global, Kakao Investment, TBT Partners and IBX Partners. PeopleFund said that it will use the new funds to further advance its AI-powered risk management and credit scoring system for its users. The firm is also looking to roll out a B2B service to provide AI-enabled customised credit scoring system services to financial institutions…

Hong Kong’s livi bank has launched its QR payment feature for the Mainland market, allowing its customers to make cross-border payments there as well as other popular travel destinations such as Japan, South Korea and Thailand. In mainland China, livi enables customers to make QR payments through its app at over 29 million QR-code enabled merchants. livi QR Payment seamlessly integrates with UnionPay’s payment and merchant network where payments are automatically settled in Hong Kong Dollars (HKD). According to livi, customers will not need to pay extra for handling fees or currency exchange. Enabled by UnionPay, livi QR Payment is…

Financial regulations and IT changes are creating an environment where businesses must quickly adapt to stay relevant to their clients. Clients expect a secure, seamless, and efficient way of staying connected with the global markets. Companies are increasingly looking to have fintech solutions that can make a difference to their clients and businesses. In the bonds market, most bonds trade over the counter. It takes tremendous effort to manually handle every transactional process, including checking for liquidity, creating settlement instructions, handling complicated corporate actions, performing manual reconciliation, etc. Manual processing may also increase the risks of human errors, bringing a…

Hong Kong’s virtual bank ZA has rolled out its new debt consolidation programme ‘Debt Changer’ which seeks to make it easier for customers to repay their debts in one go and improve their credit ratings. The new offering will consolidate customers’ debts with other banks, financial institutions and credit cards into a single loan within the ZA Bank app. Debt Changer which also offers payment deferment of up to 6 months. According to ZA, no principal and interest repayments will be incurred during the period, offering users greater flexibility in handling their loan and credit card balances. As the interest…

Hong Kong’s Transport Department (TD) will be gradually rolling out the HKeToll at all government tolled tunnels this year to replace the manual and automatic toll booths. HKeToll makes use of the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, with the support of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology, to allow vehicles to pay tolls without stopping at toll booths. Tunnel tolls will be deducted from the pre-set toll payment accounts in the system, and users will be notified. The HKeToll supports multiple payment methods and there are no monthly fees. The TD will provide the first vehicle tag for every licensed…

InvestHK’s Director-General of Investment Promotion Stephen Phillips has embarked on a duty visit to Jakarta, Indonesia as well as Singapore this week. The tour is part of InvestHK’s latest efforts to promote Hong Kong’s business attractions, including the opportunities arising from the Greater Bay Area (GBA). During the visit, Phillips will be meeting with representatives of companies from the financial services sector as well as other industries to discuss their plans of setting up or expanding operations in Hong Kong and other parts of the GBA. Phillips will also host a business roundtable cum luncheon for member companies of the…

Manulife has announced the appointment of Anne-Maree Tassell as its new Chief Operations Officer for Asia effective today onwards. Anne-Maree will be driving the Manulife’s growth strategy and digital transformation in the region. She has more than 30 years’ experience in financial services and will play a pivotal role in shaping Manulife’s customer-facing operations including straight-through processing and automation. Anne-Maree will be reporting to both Damien Green, President and CEO of Manulife Asia, and Rahul Joshi, Manulife’s Global Chief Operations Officer. She joins Manulife from Citi, where she held leadership roles across Australia, Hong Kong and the UK. Most recently,…

Hong Kong’s virtual bank ZA announced that it has rolled out another short-term savings insurance plan starting from HKD 10,000 (approximately US$ 1,280) through the app in just 3 minutes. The ‘ZA Savings Insurance 4’ is denominated in Hong Kong dollars with an 18-month locked-in period. The maximum premium for each insured person and policy is capped at HKD 500,000. According to ZA Bank, the insurance plan offers guaranteed returns of 4.8% p.a. 3 at maturity if no surrender has been made. The bank added that users will receive a premium discount of 0.65% during a limited-time which translates into…

Temenos announced that Next Bank , a new digital bank backed by Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest telecom operator, has gone live on Temenos’ core banking platform. One of the first digital banks in Taiwan to receive a virtual banking license from the island’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), Next Bank is aiming to build a bank that makes financial management simple with innovative thinking, design aesthetics and friendly experiences. On the Temenos open platform, Next Bank said it can bring products to market fast and scale efficiently. Today, the digital bank offers deposits, cards, loans and an innovative points program giving…

Metaverse ecosystem builder Animoca Brands and blockchain interoperability protocol LayerZero have launched a global hackathon to demonstrate real-world use cases of interoperable digital assets. The LayerZero-Animoca Brands Hackerhouse will gather developers, projects and companies to conceptualise and build proof-of-concepts that will push the technical boundaries of cross-chain standards. Animoca Brands and LayerZero aim to organise events across major cities every year with its inaugural stop being held at Hong Kong digital tech park Cyberport on 12 December 2022. The event received the support of ecosystem partners including Zellic, OtterSec, Brinc, and Cyberport. Over 50 participants representing more than 25 companies…