Babel Finance, a Hong Kong-based wholesale crypto financial services provider, announced that it has raised a US$80 million Series B financing round at a valuation of US$2 billion. The main investors in this round include Jeneration Capital and 10T Holdings, as well as existing shareholders Dragonfly Capital and BAI Capital. Other investors include Circle Ventures and a number of family offices in the Asia-Pacific region. Babel Finance’s major businesses are crypto lending and trading, with a focus on serving institutional clients, including crypto-native institutions, traditional financial institutions such as banks and investment funds, as well as ultra-high-net-worth accredited investors and…

Quantifeed, a digital wealth management solutions provider for financial institutions, announces its Series C funding round led by HSBC Asset Management’s (HSBC AM’s) alternative investments business, HSBC Alternatives. The size of the funds raised were not disclosed. HSBC AM is joined by Daiwa PI Partners and current shareholders, including global asset manager Franklin Templeton and global investment firm LUN Partners Group. Quantifeed said that it will use the funds to strengthen its solutions for advisors, portfolio managers and end-customers. It intends to enrich its portfolio design, advice and trading engines, and enable wealth management across a broader set of asset…

Provenir, an AI-powered risk decisioning software provider, announced it has been selected to join TransUnion’s Strategic Alliance Distribution Programme. Through this alliance, TransUnion’s clients will be able to take advantage of Provenir’s platform to gain deeper insights for greater decisioning speed and accuracy. The way consumers interact with financial services products is changing, rapidly – consumers expect instant decisions, personalised offers and automated, digital experiences. Meanwhile, fraud losses hit US$56 billion in 2020 and fraud attacks are only getting more sophisticated and widespread. To address these challenges, financial organisations are increasingly seeking technology that provides flexibility, scalability, access to new…

The latest research by the International Data Corporation (IDC) and Thought Machine, a cloud native core banking technology firm, revealed that 40% of banks in the Asia Pacific will make significant changes to their current core banking systems in the next three years. The “A Clear Path Ahead: Migrating to Digital Core” report found that the transformation of core systems is now becoming a priority with 75% of banks saying that they have delayed full-blown replacements. Banks are facing a reality check when it comes to legacy core banking systems which present several challenges. Among them is the inability to quickly bring…

Syfe, a digital investment platform headquartered in Singapore, announced that it has expanded its footprint to Hong Kong, its first market expansion since its launch in 2019. The firm is licensed in Hong Kong under Types 1 (Dealing in Securities), 4 (Advising on Securities), as well as 9 (Asset Management), and is regulated by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). Syfe provides investors access to institutional-level investment strategies and advisory services previously only available for the top level of high-net worth individuals. Its technology also allows Syfe to deliver its high-end and personalised advisory through its app – all without any…

InsureTech Connect Asia (ITC Asia) will be hosting the first 3-day in-person event since the pandemic from 7 – 9 June 2022 at Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre, Singapore. The insurtech event has offered unparalleled access to the largest and most comprehensive gathering of tech entrepreneurs, investors, and insurance industry executives from across the globe. Exploring the growth potential of the Asia Pacific region, the conference will gather senior industry executives, investors, and startups to share and showcase how they have adapted and accelerated in the face of the pandemic. Attendees will have access to an enriching conference that will…

In Hong Kong, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a toll on people’s financial health as family members from low-income households are put out of work and forced to turn to part-time work and credit to make ends meet. This is according the Q1 2022 results of TransUnion’s quarterly Consumer Pulse Survey, which polled more than 1,000 adults in February 2022 to understand how Hong Kong consumers’ personal finances have changed and measure evolving consumer attitudes. Results from the survey show that tightened social distancing regulations caused by the fifth wave of COVID-19 has affected companies and small businesses, leading…

Hong Kong, a global financial hub, is home to a burgeoning fintech industry, a sector that’s risen on the back of a favorable regulatory landscape, supportive initiatives from the government, and an active community of investors supporting the growth of promising startups. Data from Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK), the government body responsible for foreign direct Investment and which supports overseas businesses to set up and expand in Hong Kong, shows that Hong Kong is now home to more than 600+ fintech companies and five fintech unicorns. The city is among the world’s biggest adopters of consumer fintech products, and 86%…

WeBank, a digital-only bank in China, launched its new brand “WeBank Blockchain” which will be focused on building trusted ESG infrastructure to promote equity and sustainable development for its blockchain technology. To better promote ESG development, WeBank Blockchain will focus on key technologies used for privacy computing, trusted governance, distributed digital identity and more. It will develop the framework for ESG applications and build open-source ecosystem promoting quick and efficient implementation of ESG programmes. Through an open-source ecosystem, WeBank Blockchain will work with more partners to drive ESG applications and cultivate talent with both blockchain and ESG capabilities, which is…

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has issued a discussion paper titled “e-HKD: A policy and design perspective”, inviting views from the public on key policy and design issues for its retail central bank digital currency (rCBDC). After announcing the “Fintech 2025” strategy in June 2021, the HKMA started a project to study the prospect of introducing the e-HKD in Hong Kong. The initial findings of the first part of the study, which focused on the technical aspect, was published in October 2021 in the form of a technical whitepaper for comments. The second part of the study focused on…

Hong Kong’s digital insurer Blue announced the launch of its “WeMedi Group Medical Protector”, a group medical insurance plan designed for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The plan offers SMEs an affordable option to help its employees have access to medical care. With an annual premium starting from HK$200 per employee, those who are insured can access over 700 designated network doctors and receive 8 types of outpatient services with up to 70% off for unlimited times per policy year. “WeMedi Group Medical Protector” is available to companies with a minimum of three employees, and no medical underwriting is required.…

Standard Chartered (Hong Kong) announced a new partnership with The Sandbox, a decentralised gaming virtual world, to create innovative experiences for its customers and the community. Led by SC Ventures, Standard Chartered Group’s investment arm, the bank will actively engage its clients, partners, staff, and the tech community, to explore co-creation opportunities in this new space. The bank said that the goal is to experiment and build new experiences, as well as bringing the local sports and art communities into the metaverse. Standard Chartered added that it was the first bank to acquire virtual land at The Sandbox metaverse’s Mega…

Home to over 600 fintech companies, Hong Kong is an international fintech hub characterized by a diverse, resilient, and dynamic landscape that’s supported by a strong network of incubators and accelerators, a pool of experienced angels and venture capitalists (VCs), a host of government-backed programs, and a number of trade associations. These past years, the domestic fintech ecosystem has developed rapidly and a number of players are turning into leaders in their own specialties. To get a sense of Hong Kong’s hottest fintech companies and the players VCs are betting on, we look today at the top 5 most well-funded fintech companies…

Virtual bank WeLab has been granted a license from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (HKSFC) to offer digital wealth advisory services. Having obtained the Type 1 (dealing in securities) and Type 4 (advising on securities) licenses, WeLab had soft launched its intelligent wealth solution GoWealth Digital Wealth Advisory (GoWealth) for selected customers, with the public launch scheduled for the near future. GoWealth is WeLab Bank’s wealth management advisory solution which capitalises on the investment expertise of asset management firm Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI). According to WeLab, the GoWealth feature is quite intuitive and its navigation will feel like…

Hong Kong’s virtual bank livi announced that it has launched its personal loan offering from HK$10,000 up to HK$1,000,000. The livi Flexi Loan is fully automated and available 24/7 where approvals reportedly takes about 2 minutes after which the funds would be deposited immediately into the customer’s liviSave account. livi said that no documents are needed for loans below HK$250,000 although they may be asked to provide additional supporting documents if needed. The actual time for loan approval and loan payout may vary depending on the information provided by the customer and are subject to the credit assessment result. Powered…

LINE Bank Taiwan announced that it has already exceeded 1.1 million customers in the first year of its operations. The neobank was among the three entities to receive a virtual banking license from Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission in June 2019. Since its official launch in April 2021, the internet-only bank said that its LINE Bank debit cards have topped all industry peers in terms of transaction volume. This was according to data from the National Credit Card Center (NCCC), in both dollar amount and the number of transactions per card in relation to cards in circulation. The bank added that…

LVC Corporation, the operator of LINE’s crypto asset and blockchain businesses, announced that it has launched a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace available only in Japan called LINE NFT. From today onwards, the marketplace will offer around 40,000 NFT products for sale. This allows for LINE’s user base of approximately 90 million in Japan to conveniently send or exchange NFTs with their LINE friends. Users can store the purchased NFTs in their LINE BITMAX Wallet, a digital asset management wallet, that they can register via their LINE account. LINE NFT will offer a wide variety of content, including exclusive NFT videos…

MaiCapital, a licensed virtual assets manager, announced that it has secured approval from the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong (SFC) to manage portfolios that may comprise up to 100% of virtual assets. The latest approval from the SFC will allow MaiCapital to deploy its investment strategies in the cryptocurrency markets with greater flexibility and to significantly augment its offering to investors. MaiCapital has a virtual asset-themed fund named Blockchain Opportunity Fund for more than 3 years now. The company’s second fund, the Bitcoin+ Fund, employs quantitative strategies seeking to track and outperform, Bitcoin in various market conditions. Both funds…

Hong Kong insurer OneDegree announced that it has entered into a three-year strategic partnership with Munich Re to launch OneInfinity, a digital asset insurance product. OneInfinity is an insurance and technology product offering designed specifically for digital asset trading platforms, custodians, asset managers and technology providers. Under this partnership, Munich Re will provide reinsurance capacity and support OneDegree’s technical underwriting. The partners also commit to building modeling capabilities based on OneDegree’s unique centralised finance (CeFi) and decentralised finance (DeFi) incident database to support future product innovation. OneInfinity bundles OneDegree insurance with Cymetrics’ solutions. Cymetrics helps companies examine cyber, blockchain and…

ZA Tech, the technology venture founded by ZhongAn Online and backed by Softbank’s Vision Fund 1, has acquired a stake in Aladin Bank, an Indonesia-based Sharia digital bank. Further details of the agreement was not disclosed. The investment will strengthen Aladin Bank as a digital bank, both in terms of capital and various strategic business plans going forward, while expanding ZA Tech’s existing footprint in Indonesia. Aladin Bank will also be able to tap into ZA Tech’s experience in the digital insurance ecosystem with this partnership. Additionally, both entities will be collaborating to provide financial education and planning with accessible…