Ping An’s OneConnect has been selected as a strategic partner by Singapore based digital banking consortium BEYOND to jointly develop digital banking products and services for Singapore’s SME sector and their workforce. OneConnect is among the 8 entities who was granted a license to operate a virtual bank in Hong Kong and BEYOND is among the 21 applicants pursuing Singapore’s digital banking license. The BEYOND consortium is led by V3 Group through its fintech arm V3 Fintech and Singapore’s contactless payment pioneer EZ-Link, and comprises leaders in the Singapore business community including Singapore Business Federation, Far East Organization, Mitsui Sumitomo…

Fintech companies in China attracted USD 962.2 million in investments from venture capital, private equity and M&A in 2H 2019, resulting in a total of USD 4,479 million in investments for the whole of 2019, according to KPMG’s Pulse of Fintech H2’19 bi-annual report on global fintech investment trends. Fintech investment in China took a breather after a massive 2018, but the country’s fintech market continued to see substantial activity and Chinese companies still ranked among the largest fintech deals in Asia Pacific for the whole of 2019. China’s large technology giants continued to focus on growing their reach geographically,…

In 2019, a record of 24 fintech unicorns were born, with more than half of them (13) being from the US, according to data from CB Insights. Following the US is Germany with three new fintech unicorns, and the UK and Brazil both with two. Other countries and locations represented include Hong Kong, France, Japan and Australia. These new additions brought the total number of fintech unicorns around the world to 64, as of December 2019. Q1’19 saw three new unicorn births: N26 (Germany), a mobile-first, challenger bank operating in more than 20 markets Chime (US), a digital, challenger…

CoolBitX, has successfully secured $16.75 million in a Series B funding round. According to their statement, the funding will help provide FATF-compliant solutions to virtual asset service providers (VASPs) around the world through their service, Sygna. The funding round, led by Japan’s financial group SBI Holdings, will help expand Sygna beyond the Asia-Pacifc (APAC) region. In addition to SBI Holdings, other investors include the National Development Fund of Taiwan, BitSonic and Monex. In a press conference held at the beginning of the week, Michael Ou, CEO of CoolBitX, said: “We are thrilled and encouraged by the support that we have…

Blockchain technology is based on peer-to-peer topology and it encompasses a series of immutable records of data that is managed by thousands of computers around the world, not owned by any single entity. The biggest advantage of blockchain technology is that each of these blocks of data is secured and bound using cryptographic principles and it’s a completely decentralized system. Governments across the world explore the possibilities and applications of this technology. China is also no exception. In fact, 25 percent of new blockchain projects worldwide belong to China and there are also organizations that promote legitimate blockchain development like…

FinFabrik signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Chekk to integrate Chekk’s KYC capabilities to its market infrastructure “CrossPool”, enabling financial institutions in private markets to grow new digital asset businesses powered by distributed technology. CrossPool is built to serve the asset issuers and investors primarily to achieve two things:  creating a primary market where institutions originate and allocate digital assets, and a secondary market where investors are able to discover a price, buy and sell those assets whilst being able to transfer their ownership rights in a legal and compliant manner. Alex Medana, Co-founder & CEO, said, “Chekk and…

Zinvest Financial (“Zinvest”), a SEC-registered investment adviser that offers advisory & trading resources to US-Asia investors, today announced its official launch. Headquartered in Anaheim, California, Zinvest offers no-fee investment advice on US securities, access to national market data, stock trading services, and mobile portfolio management solutions to retail investors in both US and Asia. Zinvest is part of a group fintech companies to emerge from China that specializes in quantitative investment solutions. According to their media statement, the firm was established as a response to ongoing industry changes, which includes the exploding popularity of high-frequency trading and greater trading volumes.…

The Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund/HSBC JUMPSTARTER 2020 Global Pitch Competition Grand Finale today announced the top five winners at the close of the two-day event with 20,000 supporters from 100 countries and regions participated online. Up to a total US$5 million investment commitments, as well as a total cash prize of US$100,000 will be shared among the five winners. They will also have a chance to connect with the Alibaba ecosystem. “Despite the various challenges the world is facing, including the novel coronavirus and geopolitics, an entrepreneurial spirit is one that will never give up. We should all stay committed to…

Mastercard was granted preparatory approval from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to begin setting up a domestic bankcard clearing institution in China, the company announced on February 11. The news is significant for Mastercard, which has been looking to tap into China’s massive US$27 trillion payments market that’s currently dominated by large, domestic players. For a long time, US financial companies had struggled to enter China but in 2015 Beijing allowed foreign bankcard clearing providers to obtain license by setting up units or acquiring a local company, reports Bloomberg. Despite this, approvals had remained slow – until now. The…

EasyEuro a fintech startup that describes itself as a Paris and Shenzhen based company offering digital banking services to SME trading between Europe and Asia – with initial focus on China, has announced the completion of a US$4 million pre-A funding round. This round of financing is mainly to be used to accelerate company growth in product development, talent recruitment and market expansion. EasyEuro aims to provide their SME clients with a digital mobile wallet which comes with a multi-currency banking account to send and receive cross-border payments in the currency of their choice. Clients can apply for a MasterCard linked…

In the midst of the global health crisis involving the novel coronavirus (2019 nCoV), China’s bigtechs including Tencent and Ant Financial, the financial affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, have deployed solutions and set up financial aid programs to help combat the outbreak, support families and medical staff, and fight fake news. Providing financial aid Since the beginning of the month, Tencent’s mobile payments platform WeChat Pay and online insurance platform WeSure have been offering financial support to small merchants hospitalized for treatment of the virus, reports TechNode. Merchants can apply for financial aid via WeChat Pay, and those eligible…

Fiserv, a global tech vendor for financial services and ZA Bank the first virtual bank to soft launch in Hong Kong announced today that the bank will be using Fiserv to power its entire card payment lifecycle which includes; origination, card issuance, authorization, settlement and customer service In a media statement, ZA Bank said that Fiserv’s service-oriented core architecture and Open APIs enable the bank to develop and launch innovative products faster and at a lower cost “We are pleased to partner with Fiserv as we embark on a journey to shift the lifestyle of future banking users,” “With…

In a blog post written by its founder George Harrap, Bitspark announced that it will be shutting down as of March 2020. They attributed the decision to an “internal restructuring that hasn’t worked out”. Founded in 2014, Bitspark often describes itself as a bankless money transfer solution utilising blockchain technology. In 2019 the company experimented with stablecoins launching what they claim is the first HKD-pegged and Philippines Pesos pegged stablecoin in the market. In a Twitter thread, its co-founder Maxine Ryan attributed her decision to step down at BitSpark’s COO as one of the factors that led to the closure…

Visa and Airwallex today announced a global partnership to launch Airwallex borderless Card, a B2B card-based solution to help business pay and be paid securely and conveniently. The new offering will be available initially in Australia, with other markets around the world, including the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, to follow later this year. Through the partnership with Visa, businesses on Airwallex will be able to instantly generate a multi-currency virtual Visa payment account to pay their suppliers within seconds. Businesses can take advantage of Airwallex’s international foreign exchange rates as the virtual payment accounts are linked directly to its…

Amid growing adoption of facial recognition payments, the Payment & Clearing Association of China has released self-discipline guidelines aimed at tackling associated risks, reports Chinese media outlet Caixin. The guidelines detail several principles related to user consent and data collection and storage among other topics that payment services providers should follow when using the technology for payments. Companies using facial recognition for payments should encrypt facial image data and store it separately from data such as bank numbers and other personal information, it says, and merchants and other companies receiving transactions should not be allowed to retain users’ facial image…

Technology is transforming the banking and financial services industry and this is just the beginning. As the sector moves towards open banking and APIs, banks will need to collaborate with fintechs to remind relevant and address the many challenges arising, according to a new report by Kapronasia, a finance and fintech research and consulting company. Titled The Future of Fintech Cooperation, and produced in collaboration with Ant Financial, the report looks at the way the fintech industry is changing and how financial institutions and fintechs are increasingly working together to drive the next wave of innovation. According to the report,…

It’s evident to observers of the space that fintech has been one of Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s priorities in the recent years. Over the past few years, the regulator has introduced many new initiatives including the widely known Faster Payment System  and the virtual banking licensing regime. Recently the regulator embarked on a study that showed 90% of retail banks in Hong Kong have adopted or planned to adopt AI, showing the progress of incumbent banks in embracing the use of innovation and technology. In keeping pace with the rest of the industry, HMKA has also been going transformation to…

Nielsen and Alipay have jointly released a new report on the latest trends in Chinese outbound tourism and the consumption habits of Chinese travelers for the third consecutive year. Surveying 4,837 Chinese travelers and 547 overseas merchants, the report finds that the Southeast Asia region maintains its leadership in mobile payment usage among Chinese tourists, with Singapore and Thailand positioned at #1 and #6 in the global ranking, reflecting the region’s maturity in mobile payment solutions. Other countries on the list of “Top 10 countries where Chinese tourists love to use mobile payments” include South Korea, Japan, Australia, France, New…

One in two Hong Kongers are likely to open an account with a virtual bank with a tenth saying they will definitely do so, according to a study by Visa. The Future of Commerce: Consumer Payment Attitudes Study by Visa shows that consumers perceive benefits of virtual banks to be lower banking fees (62%); better interest rates compared to what are currently being offered (47%); and better user experience (32%). The Hong Kong Monetary Authority granted eight virtual banking licenses, a key component of the government’s Smart Banking Initiatives. The aim is to facilitate financial innovation, enhance customer experience and…

Hong Kong has been pushing for greater development and adoption of digital and mobile payments with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) beginning issuing stored value facilities (SVF) licenses in 2016 and virtual banking licenses in March 2019. Over the past year, nearly nine in ten consumers in Hong Kong have used a digital wallet, according to the Digital Payments Landscape in Hong Kong 2019 report by Tofugear and Wirecard, underlining that there is a genuine willingness to engage with new payment methods. According to JP Morgan’s report digital wallets are the second most popular payment option in Hong Kong,…