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…

Tencent’s WeBank and OpenNodes a deep tech ecosystem platform backed by IMDA and powered by Tribe, have joined hands to offer the financial blockchain platform, FISCO BCOS, as an ‘innovation playfield’ to technology students and academics in Singapore The move is said to be aimed at advancing blockchain use within the academic community and encouraging them to pioneer innovations that can shape the future of different industries. In their statement, they said that students will receive support from this joint ecosystem to test their disruptive ideas, as they use FISCO BCOS like LEGO bricks to build. If the development is…

Wave Money and Ant Financial today announced a strategic partnership to promote financial inclusion in Myanmar. Wave Money is a joint venture between Telenor Group and the Yoma Group. As part of this partnership, Ant Financial plans to invest US$73.5 million in Wave Money to become a substantial minority stakeholder, alongside existing shareholders Yoma Group and Telenor. Ant Financial’s stake in Wave Money will come by way of a new share issuance which is subject to certain conditions, including regulatory approval. Wave Money provides digital financial services in Myanmar, they claim to be running a network of over 57,000 agents…

Fintech has been named one of the top priorities for South Korea this year. The government has said it will go all out to nurture the fintech industry in 2020 and has set aside a budget of 19.8 billion won (US$16 million) to support the sector, up 96.1% from 10.1 billion won last year. Since the beginning of 2020, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has launched and unveiled several initiative aimed at boosting fintech. These include the FSC’s Fintech Plan, which seeks, among other things, to improve biometric verification regulations, establish a more robust digital finance user protection system, develop…

Despite the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, 20 Swiss DeepTech startups will be taking the virtual stage in Asia this 10 June. Organized by swissnex China in collaboration with SwissTech, CES ASIA and Venture Leaders, with the support of institutional partners, the SwissTech Pitchinar 2020 will serve as a testament to Switzerland’s leading position as a center of technology and innovation. Out of the 20 deeptechs two of which are in fintech and blockchain. Following Switzerland’s record-performance at CES ASIA 2019 winning 6 CES Innovation Awards, SwissTech will be taking the stage again in Asia this 10 June – virtually!…

ZA Life announced that it has received regulatory green light from the Insurance Authority to operate as a digital insurer in Hong Kong. ZA Life is a result of a joint venture between insurer Fubon Life and ZA International who operates Hong Kong’s first fully launched virtual bank. ZA Life touted that its onboarding process take only few minutes without a requiring a medical check-up. In its website, the digital insurer also advertises that their insurance premium starts as low as HK$2 and that family medical history does not affect the customer’s premium. Mr. Jerry Chou, Chief Executive Officer of…

Although Bitcoins were considered to be one of the safest methods to protect privacy, several questions have been raised on it. In the earlier days of cryptocurrencies, users did not pay much attention to behind the scenes while transacting in cryptocurrencies. Gradually, they began to understand the implications associated with the transactions. For example, many crypto users are interested in using privacy coins such as Zcash & Monero. Hence, it is extremely important for a user to adopt right practices in order to maintain their privacy. We have listed a few reasons to underline why privacy is important while transacting…

WeLab Bank Limited  has commenced a pilot trial under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (“HKMA”) Fintech Supervisory Sandbox (“FSS”). During the FSS phase, WeLab Bank will be offering banking services to selected individual users prior to an official launch to the public. WeLab Bank will invite approximately 2,000 individual users from its waiting list which will consist of WeLab staff and their friends and families. During the WeLab Bank Pilot, customers will be able to access a range of fully digital services including — remote account opening, time deposits and saving accounts, virtual Debit Card, and payments with Faster Payment…

MYbank, an online private commercial bank under Ant Financial Services Group, stated in its annual report released today that it has served 20.87 million small and micro businesses in China as of the end of 2019. As part of the Star Plan launched in June 2018, MYbank has worked with over 400 financial partners to provide business loans to Chinese SMEs as of 2019. 80% of MYbank loan users had previously never received business loans from banks. The average outstanding loan size for MYbank users was RMB 31,000 (approximately USD 4,300) in 2019, an increase of nearly 20% compared to…

SoFi, the digital personal finance company, announced today an expansion into its first international market, with the introduction of SoFi Invest in Hong Kong. SoFi is launching its international presence in the Hong Kong market based on its acquisition of the parent of online brokerage firm 8 Securities, based in Hong Kong. By localizing the SoFi brand in Hong Kong, SoFi will continue to serve existing 8 Securities customers, as well as expand to an ever-growing member base. SoFi’s acquisition of 8 Securities remains subject to customary closing conditions. Following closing, the 8 Securities platform will be rebranded as SoFi…

Arrano Capital, which is the blockchain arm of Venture Smart Asia Limited, today announced the launch of Hong Kong’s first regulated virtual asset fund. The fund, which tracks the price of Bitcoin, provides Professional Investors (as defined under the Securities & Futures Ordinance) access to Bitcoin through a traditional fund structure. Venture Smart Asia Limited, is licensed by the SFC to manage virtual asset funds. The fund targets a first-year size of US$ 100 Million “This fund comes at a pivotal time for Bitcoin. By bridging the gap between the regulated finance and virtual asset world, institutions can gain secure…