Lending

Malaysia Airlines Provides hoolah’s BNPL Payment Option for Its Fliers

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 15, 2022
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Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), the parent company of Malaysia Airlines, announced a regional partnership with Singaporean Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) platform hoolah to provide a seamless and convenient payment option for travellers.
Travellers in Malaysia, Singapore and soon Hong Kong, can now book their getaway with MAG’s main airline, Malaysia Airlines online and pay for their flights via hoolah’s flexible three-month, interest-free payment option.
This partnership comes at a time where travel is picking up in Singapore as its borders are already open to 30 countries/regions including Australia, South Korea, and Switzerland under the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) scheme, and the anticipated soon-to-launch VTLs with Greece and Vietnam.

Lau Yin May
Lau Yin May, Group Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer of Malaysia Airlines said,
“We are excited to collaborate with hoolah as it provides another payment option and flexibility for customers to book their flights with Malaysia Airlines.

This marks our first-of-its-kind partnership with a BNPL provider in Asia, and it couldn’t be timelier as we anticipate growing demands for travel with the reopening of our borders soon.”
Arvin Singh
Arvin Singh, CEO and Co-founder of hoolah said,
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Malaysian Aviation Group in Asia and support their business objectives as we push forward together to accelerate the recovery and growth of the travel and tourism industry.

As countries in the region gradually open up their borders, we look forward to making travel more accessible and affordable for travellers, along with the flexibility to pay for their holiday over time.”

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WealthTech

Securities Commission Cautions the Public on Rising Investment Scams on Telegram

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 15, 2022
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The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has cautioned the public on the sharp increase of investment scams promoted on messaging application Telegram.
Since January 2022, the SC has received a total of 47 complaints and enquiries on illegal investment schemes promoted through Telegram.
These fraudulent schemes offer non-existent investment opportunities, promising very attractive and risk-free returns within a short span of time.

They commonly offer unrealistic returns of as high as 1,000% within 24 hours or even within a few hours.
The perpetrators use various names to carry out the investment scams.
They may also impersonate or clone licensed capital market intermediaries by using the names, logos, credentials, websites and other details of the legitimate entities to promote the illegal schemes.
Perpetrators of these scams will create a public group on Telegram to promote these investment packages that are usually accompanied by fake testimonies and sometimes advertised as being Shariah-compliant.
Interested investors will be asked to directly message the representatives to begin investing in the various investment packages offered.
Additionally, investors are often instructed to deposit monies into personal bank accounts of individuals who claim to represent a legitimate entity, or into an unrelated corporate account.
To lend credence and to lure unsuspecting victims, perpetrators usually claim that their entity or the investment schemes are approved by financial authorities.
The Securities Commission Malaysia said in a statement,
“As such, the SC would like to remind investors to always exercise caution when evaluating investment opportunities, especially those promising unrealistically high returns with little or no risk. Investors should also never deposit money into someone’s personal bank account if instructed.

The SC urges the public to refer to the SC’s Investor Alert List before investing. The list contains details of unauthorised websites, investment products, companies and individuals.”

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Lending

Maybank Offers Digital Personal Loans With Disbursements in 10 Seconds

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 15, 2022
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Maybank has launched its new Maybank Personal Digital Financing which provides instantaneous approval and subsequently disbursement within 10 seconds.
Leveraging the bank’s comprehensive credit risk metrics and modelling capabilities, the new solution has a decisioning engine that can perform pre-qualification checks and assess each application in real-time.
All existing and new customers between 21 and 60 years old can apply for Maybank Personal Digital Financing.

Maybank’s customers can apply for up to RM100,000 or four times their monthly salaries, whichever is lower, with no income documents required.
The approval is subject to the customer having a salaried account with the bank, a minimum annual gross income of RM42,000 and meeting the bank’s other eligibility criteria such as having a healthy credit profile and score.
The solution also provides applicants an overview of their offer, including financing amount, interest and profit rate, repayment tenure as well as monthly repayment amount prior to acceptance of the offer.
New or existing customers whose income records do not reside with Maybank can also apply with an additional step of uploading their income documents.
The decision will be communicated to customers on the same day, with the funds disbursed within one day of approval, should they meet the eligibility criteria.
The financing option is now available under conventional or Islamic options on Maybank2u web and MAE app, .
Dato’ John Chong
Dato’ John Chong, Group CEO of Maybank’s Community Financial Services said,
“In addition to fast disbursement, Maybank Personal Digital Financing does not require collateral or a guarantor, making it ideal for customers who need cash in hand immediately.”

This year, we expect a minimum of 30% growth in our personal financing segment, boosted by the introduction of Maybank Personal Digital Financing,”

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Blockchain/Bitcoin
Funding

Luno Launches Early-Stage Investment Arm to Back Over 200 Fintech Startups

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 17, 2022
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Luno, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG), announces the launch of Luno Expeditions, a global, early-stage investment arm for fintech, crypto and web3 startups.
The investment arm will now spearhead all of DCG’s early stage investing.
The team will scale up investments targeting up to 200-300 per year globally and expand the focus beyond crypto into the broader fintech space.

In a statement to Fintech News Malaysia, its CEO, Jocelyn Cheng said that Luno Expeditions is keen to support founders building the next generation of Malaysian fintech and crypto companies.
She adds that they are aiming to invest in ambitious startups who share their goal of building a better financial system in Malaysia and globally.
Luno Expeditions has already invested in over 20 crypto and fintech companies globally, including a crypto compliance solutions platform, an NFT marketplace in the United States, a bank dedicated to women in Pakistan and a remittance solution in Tanzania.
Barry Silbert, Founder and CEO of DCG as well as Marcus Swanepoel, Co-founder and CEO of Luno, are both closely involved in the initiative and will be part of the Investment Committee.
Luno Expeditions will be led by Jocelyn Cheng, who takes on the role of CEO.
Jocelyn Cheng
Speaking about her new role Cheng said,
“I am thrilled to join Luno Expeditions as Chief Executive. These are incredibly exciting times in cryptocurrency and the broader fintech ecosystem. We’ve got ambitious plans to build a leading fund designed around the needs of early stage founders.

It will be a privilege to work with ambitious entrepreneurs from all over the world, all intent on solving problems and building the next generation of financial service companies.”
Marcus Swanepoel
Marcus Swanepoel, Co-founder and CEO of Luno said,
“We know how hard it is to build a company, especially in the fintech space, and with our deep experience building, scaling and operating fintech businesses in some of the hardest markets in the world, we’re looking to support a new generation of entrepreneurs from all over the world do the same.”

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Cloud
Insurtech

Tune Protect Becomes The First Insurer to Move Its Core to the Cloud

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 18, 2022
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Tune Protect Malaysia is now the first insurer in the country to have received approval from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to host its insurance core system on Telekom Malaysia’s (TM) Cloud α Edge.
This was made possible via a collaboration between Tune Protect, TM and Huawei Malaysia.
This partnership will enable Tune Protect to re-platform its existing GIS (General Insurance System), an insurance core system, on to cloud.

This collaboration between the three parties aims to provide Tune Protect’s customers with consistent speeds in user portal experience; more tailored insurance offerings for their requirements; and better insurance premium rates due to infrastructure and intelligence optimisation.
Tune Protect said that works are currently underway for the core insurance system to be deployed in multiple phases commencing July 2022.
Prasanta Roy
Prasanta Roy, Group Chief Technology Officer of Tune Protect said,
“As the first insurer to have received the approval to host the core system on Cloud, we are further enhancing our group credentials.

Cloud is the centrepiece of our digital transformation that will enable us to achieve speed-to-market and introduce more innovative products and services for our customers.”
Imri Mokhtar
Imri Mokhtar, Group Chief Executive Officer of TM said,
“With TM Cloud α Edge being fully compliant to BNM’s RMiT, FSI players can reap the benefit of scalability and agility to future-proof their business, while simultaneously protecting customer data, at a superior price advantage.

Through our enterprise and public sector business solutions arm, TM ONE, we are ready to serve the industry with end-to-end robust and secured digital infrastructure, befitting our role as the sole Malaysian Cloud Service Provider (CSP) under the MyDIGITAL initiative.”
Lim Chee Siong
Lim Chee Siong, Huawei Malaysia’s Vice President of the Cloud and AI Business Group said,
“It is always our goal at Huawei Cloud to dive into digitalisation and to provide everything as a service. Huawei will continue to innovate and team up with our partners to dive into digital and build the cloud foundation for an intelligent world.

Cloud is just the beginning. We view it as a runway to transport businesses to even greater heights.”

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Islamic Fintech
Lending

Grab Partners Sedania to Roll Out Islamic Lending Products its Gig Workers

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 18, 2022
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Grab Financial Group (GFG) Malaysia and SEDANIA As Salam Capital Sdn Bhd (SASC) are partnering to offer Grab Cash Financing-i, a shariah-compliant financing product, to eligible Grab drivers and delivery partners.
Grab Cash Financing-i aims to provide its gig workers with convenient and secure access to financing. This financing option lowers the barriers to micro-financing which is typically inaccessible to those below a certain income level and lack a formal credit history.
This solution is made possible through SASC’s GoHalal Financing Programme (GHP), which ensures the financing activities and operations are compliant with Shariah principles and practices.

The GoHalal Financing Programme has key Shariah compliance tools to enable Shariah financing and among key features are Shariah Advisory Services by Afsha Shariah Advisory and As-Sidq Digital Trading Platform using Digital Commodities for real-time transaction and processing.

Nisa Ismail
On growth opportunities in Islamic financing, Nisa added,
“As the world grapples with the economic impact of the pandemic, access to inclusive financing options in the gig economy remains limited. During this trying time, it is important for every Malaysian to be supported and have convenient access to financial assistance and services that will help them thrive and move forward.
We are honoured to work alongside Grab Financial Group to offer the Grab Cash Financing-i programme to their driver and delivery-partners who have been serving as front liners during the pandemic.”
According to a survey which was conducted among Grab’s driver- and delivery-partners, 65% of them cited that a Shariah-compliant financing option was important to them.
Their main financing needs included emergency and personal expenses, current loan settlement and education for family members. When the programme was introduced in December 2021 to a limited number of eligible partners, they said it received encouraging responses.
Sean Goh
“Since introducing the programme, we saw a take-up rate of 16% among eligible Grab drivers and delivery-partners. Grab Cash Financing-i is just one of GFG’s collaborative efforts with like-minded partners like SEDANIA to democratise financial services for everyday Malaysians.
Our ecosystem, technology and data provide unique insights into our partners’ earnings and spendings, and subsequently their risk scorecard and payment capabilities. We can then customise products that cater to their financial needs,”
said Sean Goh, Managing Director and Head of Grab Financial Group, Grab Malaysia.

Following what they described as an encouraging response, GFG is now piloting the Grab Cash Financing-i to a larger pool of eligible drivers and delivery-partners.
Eligible Grab gig workers will receive communications about the programme if they and automated payments will be made to their daily earnings. Only Grab gig workers who are earning above RM 800 monthly and below 75 years old are eligible to apply.

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Blockchain/Bitcoin

SC Registers Two Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) Operators

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 23, 2022
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The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) today announced that it has registered two Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) operators, Kapital DX Sdn Bhd and Pitch Platforms Sdn Bhd, to promote responsible innovation in the digital assets space.
The registered IEO operators will provide an alternative avenue for eligible companies to raise funds via the issuance of digital tokens in Malaysia.
An issuer may raise funds up to RM100 million from retail, sophisticated, as well as angel investors, subject to the investment limits provided in the SC’s Guidelines on Digital Assets.

These new operators will be required to carry out the necessary assessments, among others, to verify the issuer’s digital value proposition, review the issuer’s proposal and disclosures in its Whitepaper, and undertake a comprehensive due diligence on the issuer and its token offering, prior to hosting the issuer’s digital token on their platform.
In addition, they will be given up to nine months to comply with all the regulatory requirements before commencing operations, and this includes putting in place a robust and effective Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) process to mitigate Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (ML/TF) risks.

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Lending

AmBank Digitalises Its Supply Chain Finance Management With CapBay

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 24, 2022
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AmBank announced that it has has partnered with Bay Supply Chain Technology, a member of the CapBay group of companies and a fintech company offering a digital Supply Chain Finance (SCF) platform.
The partnership aims to enable integrated digitalisation in SCF that will positively impact the supply chain management process.
With SCF going digital, AmBank can now expand its market to include micro, small and medium sized enterprises along the supply chains to improve their trade activities and cash flow.

This also eliminates the cumbersome physical submission of financing requests and supporting documentations.
The SCF platform consolidates data produced by the flows of goods and money throughout the supply chain, thereby providing transparency to build trust and facilitate decision-making among buyers and suppliers as trade data and supporting documents are digitised and uploaded to the shared platform.
This offers customers and their buyers or suppliers more efficient, secure, and cost-effective business operations and cash flow management.
Raja Teh Maimunah
Raja Teh Maimunah Raja Abdul Aziz, Managing Director, Wholesale Banking, AmBank Group said,
“This partnership comes in line with the group’s effort in embracing our digital transformation journey. We believe it brings together financial technology and service innovation for SMEs to thrive, especially in the current economic landscape.

We hope this initiative can help businesses improve efficiency, by providing a seamless and secure cash flow management solution for our customers.”
Ang Xing Xian
Ang Xing Xian, CEO of CapBay said,
“We are pleased to collaborate with AmBank to drive their initiatives to digitalise their Supply Chain Finance management.

This will certainly enable their SME customers, along with their buyers and suppliers, to be better served and gain access to cash faster and easier.”

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Crowdfunding

pitchIN Secures In-Principle Approval for Secondary Market From the SC

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 24, 2022
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Malaysian equity crowdfunding platform (ECF) pitchIN announced that it has received in-principle approval for Secondary Market from the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC).
The company is targeting to launch the pitchIN Secondary Market in the first half of 2022.
Just yesterday the SC had also announced that pitchIN was one of the two registered Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) operators.

Chan Wei Chi, who will head pitchIN’s IEO operations, said that pitchIN aims to contribute to the creation of a vibrant digital assets ecosystem in Malaysia that is open, innovative and interoperable.
pitchIN added that it has been preparing for some time now to grow beyond ECF into a fintech player with multiple offerings.
The company has made moves to strengthen its capacities in technology, compliance, legal and financial analysis to prepare for this.
pitchIN has also raised RM10.5 million from an ECF campaign as well as VC investors.
Over the past six years, pitchIN’s ECF platform have assisted over 130 fast growing Malaysian companies to raise over RM230 million.
Sam Shafie
Sam Shafie, CEO of pitchIN said,
“We believe that IEO and the pitchIN Secondary Market will enable pitchIN to offer more fundraising options as well as add liquidity options for investors.

The Secondary Market and upcoming IEO are just the first on our roadmap. We look forward to launching even more services soon, not just in Malaysia but also regionally.”
Kashminder Singh
Kashminder Singh, Chief Strategy Officer of pitchIN said,
“Many companies who raised funds previously on pitchIN are doing well. We have already seen the first IPO among our issuers with a few more on the way.

The pitchIN Secondary Market will add another exit option to existing ECF investors as well as new investors who want to take up equity in these growing companies. ”

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Blockchain/Bitcoin
WealthTech

Malaysian Women’s Interest in Crypto Is Skyrocketing, Says Luno

									by Fintech News Malaysia
March 31, 2022
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Luno, a regulated digital asset exchange in Malaysia, shared that its female users have grown from 16,000 in 2020 to more than 120,000 in 2021, an increase of more than sevenfold.
In addition, the transaction volume of female users has increased twelve times year-on-year (YoY) from RM170 million to over RM2 billion, indicating a positive trend of digital asset investment among women in Malaysia.
The data is based on Luno’s female Malaysian user activity in 2021.

On Luno, most female users in Malaysia buy cryptocurrencies for investment while the rest are for trading, sending and receiving, and payment.
Most of the transactional activities came from the 30-39 age group (33%), followed by 25-29 years old (25%), 18-24 years old (17%), and 40-49 years old (16%).
Scarlett Chai
Scarlett Chai, Malaysia’s Marketing Manager at Luno said,
“At Luno, we are committed to educating the public on the power of digital assets as an alternative investment. This initiative has helped grow awareness of digital assets among a much wider audience.

In addition, we have made our platform more accessible and inclusive by organising a series of educational webinars tailored for women, the Women-in-Crypto series. Our goal is to encourage even more women to participate in this exciting space.”

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Payments

Airwallex Officially Launches Its Payments Operations in Malaysia

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 1, 2022
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Airwallex, a cross border payments company, announced the launch of its cross-border payment services in Malaysia today.
The company had managed to secure a money services business license from Bank Negara Malaysia in August last year.
Initially, qualified Malaysian businesses will be given access to Airwallex’s fast, transparent and cost-effective foreign exchange conversions and payouts in more than 130 countries, enabling them to grow and operate globally.

Airwallex said that it will continuously extend the availability of its product offerings to more businesses over the next few months.
This announcement marks Airwallex’s ongoing plans for a Southeast Asia expansion.
Earlier this year, Airwallex announced it was open for business in Singapore shortly after receiving a Major Payment Institution License from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Airwallex was founded in Melbourne in 2015, and in the past six years, the company has secured more than US$800 million in funding and a valuation of US$5.5 billion.

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E-Wallets
Lending

Touch ‘n Go Offers Personal Loans up to RM10,000 Through “GOpinjam”

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 1, 2022
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Touch ‘n Go (TNG) Group today announced the launch of GOpinjam, an inclusive digital personal loan that was developed in partnership with CIMB Bank.
GOpinjam is available effective immediately to Touch ‘n Go eWallet users who are Malaysian citizens above 21 years old.
TNG offers personal loans from as low as RM100 to a maximum of RM10,000 and potential applicants will need a minimum monthly income of RM800.

According to TNG, the repayment period for these loans can range from one week to one year, with no hidden fees of early settlement charges.
The credit underwriting process is built using the best of both data sets, that of the credit bureau and also e-wallet spend data – resulting in greater accessibility for the under-banked segment.
All first-time users who wish to apply are required to submit either a one-month payslip or latest EPF statement along with basic information for the loan application.
For the first-time user, TNG said that the approvals may take up to a day upon the receipt of full and accurate submission of the income documentation.
For approved applicants, the funds are then disbursed immediately into either their Touch ‘n Go eWallet or CIMB bank account.
Returning users will experience straight-through approval and instant loan disbursement, without the need to go through the submission process.
This marks TNG’s first digital lending solutions offering, having previously already launched financial services propositions in investments and insurance.
Effendy Shahul Hamid
Effendy Shahul Hamid, Group CEO, Touch ‘n Go Group said,
“The financial inclusion element was always at the forefront of our thinking, and we expect GOpinjam to be available to those who otherwise would not have been able to access formal credit facilities.

We’ve managed to get this done on the back of a ‘win-win’ partnership mentality between Touch ‘n Go and CIMB Bank – leveraging each other’s strengths in credit underwriting and wealth of data to bring the most relevant personal credit solution to underserved segments.”
Dato’ Abdul Rahman Ahmad, Group CEO of CIMB Group said,
Dato’ Abdul Rahman Ahmad
“CIMB is proud to support GOpinjam through our CIMB e-Zi Tunai Personal Loan, a fully inclusive proposition targeted at underserved segments, anchoring on a pure-play eWallet-Bank partnership.

We believe GOpinjam also addresses the government’s push towards a more cashless and inclusive society, an area that both CIMB Group and Touch ‘n Go Group fully support.”

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Islamic Fintech
Lending

PayHalal Partners Atome to Offer Islamic Buy Now, Pay Later Feature

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 4, 2022
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Syariah-compliant payment gateway PayHalal is now offering merchants participation in its inaugural iBNPL facility jointly offered with buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform Atome.
This Islamic BNPL programme offered by PayHalal and Atome seeks to provide merchants with sustainable income by generating traffic into their webstore and storefronts.
Merchants who sign up with PayHalal can now benefit from the free, 0% interest Riba programme as well as thousands of Atome’s pre-approved consumers with a maximum RM 5,000 spending limit.

Registration can be completed online in 30 minutes with immediate approval or with PayHalal’s on-ground roving team, which will be mobilised to assist offline merchants.
Atome will be driving campaigns to drive the app’s users to PayHalal’s merchant base for halal and Syariah-compliant products and services.
The BNPL player added that it will be adding the Malay language option in its app soon ahead of its local campaigns roll out.
On top of helping merchants gain exposure to a wider segment of consumers, PayHalal is also offering them additional benefits that include business support in the form of digital marketing and training for physical stores looking to digitalise their businesses.
PayHalal said that it is aiming to reach RM8.61 billion in payment processing volume and RM135 million in revenue by 2023.
Azhani Azman, Director of Sales at PayHalal said
“We’re excited to partner with Asia’s leading BNPL player, Atome, to bring greater options and value-for-money deals to Malaysian shoppers. With the festive shopping period coming ahead of the Hari Raya celebrations, this is the perfect time for shoppers and merchants to maximise their benefit from the festive sales. This partnership will also see additional perks and discounts provided to new merchants onboarded during this period.”
Jeremy Wong
Jeremy Wong, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Atome, shared,
“With the launch of iBNPL, the Atome programme is now available to all PayHalal merchants. Every merchant who signs up on PayHalal will benefit from Atome’s zero-interest program, technology strength and marketing prowess. For Muslim consumers, this means they can shop using iBNPL knowing that their purchase is Shariah-compliant.

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Payments

Razer Merchant Services Taps Alipay+ to Expand Its Merchant Offerings in Malaysia

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 5, 2022
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Razer Merchant Services (RMS), the B2B arm of Razer Fintech, announced the integration of Ant Group’s Alipay+ solutions for more than 60,000 online and offline merchant touchpoints across Malaysia to expand its merchant offerings.
Introduced in 2020, the Alipay+ solutions are designed to make it easy for businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to accept different payment methods and conduct cost-effective digital marketing campaigns.
These merchants can now process cross-border payments made by a wider range of global e-wallets and mobile bank apps.

E-wallets supported by Alipay+ include Touch ‘n Go eWallet in Malaysia, Kakao Pay (Republic of Korea), GCash (the Philippines), AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR and China) and more.
Moreover, with one-time deployment, merchants can access all future digital payment methods supported by Alipay+.
In addition to the roll-out in Malaysia, efforts are also underway for RMS to implement Alipay+ solutions for its Singapore-based merchants later in the year.
Li Meng Lee
“The growth of eCommerce around Southeast Asia has rapidly increased the adoption of e-wallets, and RMS is proud to be partnering with Ant Group to contribute to this expansion.

We are proud to provide Alipay+ solutions for our merchantsin Malaysia and Singapore and will continue collaborating with Ant Group to expand and provide the most comprehensive payments methods to all of our merchants across the region,”
said Lee Li Meng, CEO of Razer Fintech.
Cherry Huang
“Alipay+ helps partners including RMS to connect local merchants with global digital payment methods through one simple integration, so that to ease cross-border payments pain points and enable more merchants to adopt digital payments.

On the back of gradual border openings in the region, our collaboration with Razer Merchant Services to innovate fintech and uncover new growth opportunities for businesses in Malaysia and Singapore is timely to prepare them towards recovery.”
said Cherry Huang, General Manager, Global Merchant Partnership, South and Southeast Asia, Ant Group.

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Islamic Fintech
Lending

TheLorry Partners With microLEAP for up to RM 500,000 in Shariah-Compliant Financing

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 11, 2022
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Shariah-compliant P2P financing platform microLEAP announced a strategic and multi-faceted partnership with TheLorry, a Malaysian logistics tech platform.
This strategic collaboration provides TheLorry with flexible and convenient invoice financing as well as term financing options through microLEAP’s network of local investors seeking Shariah-compliant investment opportunities.
The partnership comes at a time when TheLorry is looking to fulfil customer orders on behalf of blue-chip companies and local merchants operating via online platforms and local hypermarkets.

The deal has a maximum cap of up to RM 500,000 per investment note over a 3-month period for invoice financing and a 12-month period for term financing, whereby both options will be Shariah-compliant.
microLEAP said that investors can expect to see gross returns of up to 15% annually.
Moving forward, microLEAP added that it is looking to expand its presence through various partnerships with both public and private entities.
To date, microLEAP has disbursed over RM20 million of financing to its issuers.
Tunku Danny Nasaifuddin Mudzaffar
Tunku Danny Nasaifuddin Mudzaffar, Founder and CEO of microLEAP said,
“We are thrilled to have a leading, homegrown tech company like TheLorry come onto our platform and provide investors with yet another strong financing investment opportunity with solid returns.

This is very much a win-win situation for all parties involved and we look forward to successfully carrying out this long-term initiative.”
Nadhir Ashafiq
Nadhir Ashafiq, Group Co-CEO of TheLorry said,
“Being a market leader in the logistics industry for 8 years and constantly supporting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), we are more than delighted to establish this partnership as it is in line with our vision of supporting local businesses.

As international borders reopen, we hope that this new financing method will ensure smoother, more seamless business operations for our trusted merchants,”

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Payments

BigPay Rolls Out DuitNow Offerings for Its Malaysian Users

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 12, 2022
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BigPay, a Capital A venture company and digital bank aspirant, announced that it has rolled out DuitNow offerings for its users nationwide.
With this move, BigPay’s users now have access to DuitNow QR and DuitNow Transfer for all payments.
In order to pay with DuitNow QR, users simply have to open the BigPay app and scan a merchant’s DuitNow QR code to complete the transaction.

BigPay users with linked airasia rewards accounts will earn points for every transaction made using DuitNow QR. These points can be redeemed on flights, food delivery and rides on the airasia superapp.
Meanwhile, BigPay users can use the service to make instant domestic fund transfers with participating local banks and e-wallets with DuitNow Transfer
Users can quickly make fund transfers to other recipients through DuitNow IDs, which can be a recipient’s mobile number, NRIC number, business registration number, police/army ID, or passport number.
Since its inception in 2017, BigPay added a range of regulated financial products on top of the e-money account, such as international remittance, micro insurance and recently, digital personal loans.
To date, there are over 1.2 million carded and transacting users on BigPay.
Salim Dhanani
“As BigPay aspires to be Malaysia’s go-to platform for simple and secure financial services, we believe that adding the suite of DuitNow products is a key part of the story.

In addition, there was an overwhelming demand from our users and we listened. We are continuously working to make it easy for BigPay to be used everywhere and at all types of merchants – the DuitNow features enable this.”
said Salim Dhanani, CEO & Co-Founder of BigPay.

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Blockchain/Bitcoin

Luno Enabled US$ 52 Billion Crypto Transactions With 10 Million Customers on Board

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 13, 2022
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Luno, a regulated digital asset exchange in Malaysia, announced that it has surpassed 10 million customers across over 40 countries, showing a growth of 35% year-on-year in its global customer base.
The company said that it had gained an additional 1 million customers in just 6 months.
In the last year, Luno grew its customer base in Indonesia by 83%, almost doubling its customers in the region.

After hitting an all-time high market cap of US$3 trillion in November 2021, the cryptocurrency market fell to its lowest level in five months in January 2022 amidst regulation concerns and a challenging macro-economic environment.
Despite this, Luno said that it had managed to cross the US$2 trillion mark in March.
Since being founded in 2013, Luno has enabled over US$52 billion of crypto to be transacted and its customers have stored in excess of US$1 billion.
Luno added that it aims to bring crypto to over 1 billion people by 2030.
The company has over 800 employees across offices in London, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Singapore, which is up 89% in the last year alone.
Marcus Swanepoel
Marcus Swanepoel, CEO and Co-Founder of Luno said,
“There are an estimated 300 million people using crypto worldwide as of March 2022 – a figure that is expected to grow as global markets gain better access to the crypto ecosystem.

Our mission is to put the power of crypto in everyone’s hands and reaching the major milestone of 10 million customers shows we are leading the way in this transition towards building a better, fairer financial system for the world.”
Aaron Tang
Aaron Tang, Country Manager of Luno Malaysia said,
“Malaysia is one of Luno’s strongest markets, 12% of the new customers added in the last 6 months are based in Malaysia. On average Malaysians deposit MYR 100 when they open their account and tend to hold for an average of 8 months.

We also saw an increase amongst our female users which have grown from 16,000 in 2020 to more than 120,000 in 2021, an increase of more than sevenfold. This is a testament to our commitment of making cryptocurrencies accessible for everyone and we are confident the adoption of digital assets will continue to grow in coming years.”

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Digital Transformation
Sponsored

Why Brands, Bigtechs, Fintechs and Banks Are All Taking Notice of Banking as a Service

									by Bosky S, Regional Head of BaaS, APAC, Finastra
April 21, 2022
0 comments

The Asia Pacific region is leading the way in a revolution that is changing the way consumers interact with financial services.
Banking as a Service (BaaS) has been spreading rapidly over the last couple of years, enabling brands to offer their customers a range of financial services, from buy-now-pay-later financing to personalised and proactive lending offers.
In fact, new research from Finastra reveals that 88% of senior executives in a number of sectors (including banking, healthcare, retail and technology) said they are already implementing BaaS solutions or are planning to, compared with 80% in EMEA and 87% in the Americas.
BaaS is the provision of retail or wholesale banking products and services, in context, as a service using an existing licensed institution’s secure, regulated infrastructure with modern API-driven platforms.

It’s changing the game by creating totally new business models and revenue streams, with a value chain that consists of three key players besides the end-customer:

Distributors (also referred to as ‘embedders’): Organisations that embed banking services directly into their existing customer journeys for retail or corporate customers.
Enablers: Usually bigtechs and fintechs that help to embed financial services into third-party platforms and apps
Providers: Financial institutions holding a banking license and offering regulated and complaint financial products

For financial institutions, BaaS simultaneously creates the opportunity to reach more customers whilst lowering the acquisition cost per customer significantly; for distributors, BaaS provides the potential for new lines of revenue whilst building deeper relationships with their customers.
In short, BaaS makes it simple, fast and cost effective to integrate regulated products into the customer journey.
Although growth has been rapid, BaaS is still an evolving industry with huge potential to grow.
In fact, Finastra expects the BaaS market – including banks, wealth management and insurance companies as well as those providing the enabling technology without underlying FS solutions –to be worth US$7 trillion by 2030.
But for this potential to be reached, distributors, enablers and providers will need to overcome a number of challenges and invest time in creating streamlined customer experiences and sleek, engaging products.

Finastra’s latest research, Banking as a Service: Outlook 2022 | Paving the way for Embedded Finance, provides insight into the market maturity of BaaS solutions.
We interviewed 50 senior executives, surveyed a further 1,600, and calculated value pools and potential growth rates of BaaS for the next three years across a number of industries, including retail, e-commerce, technology, and healthcare among others.
Findings from the report include:

Over 46% of APAC distributors currently offer, or plan to offer, credit cards to their customers using Banking as a Service, with other popular offerings including savings accounts (41%) and payment cards (38%)
Distributors are spending US$10 – US$50 million per year on financial products and service partnerships across APAC – a high level of spending which is expected to be sustained throughout 2022
Globally, 70% distributors want to increase their spending on financial partnerships (including BaaS),
50% enablers globally want to increase their number of partnerships with distributors and providers by more than 50% in the next five years

Whilst the BaaS market is currently more focused on the retail market, distributors indicated clearly to us that there will be a shift towards the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and corporate segment over the next three years.

SME lending and corporate treasury/FX services are poised to gain the highest traction and demand over the next three years, particularly in the banking and healthcare sectors.
Another segment poised for significant growth is Point of Sale (POS) financing, in which fixed-term loans are provided by, or on behalf of, a retailer.
This emerging area is expected to grow by 104% in the banking industry, with the market almost doubling in size by 2024.
BaaS enables POS financing to be expanded to debit card customers, which will translate into huge growth potential.
The market has spoken clearly and BaaS is sure to expand rapidly in the coming years.
The onus is now on companies, across all market segments, to assess the opportunities and plan a strategy that includes selecting the right use-cases, sectors, and customer segments for their business, as well as entering partnerships to accelerate market entry and penetration.
As we look to the immediate future, one thing is very clear; consumers—both retail and corporate—are changing where they source financial services and shifting to non-bank channels.
BaaS is paving the route towards truly embedded finance and a banking experience that adapts to this changed consumer behaviour.

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Funding
Lending

Earned Wage Access Platform Payd Raises RM7.5 Million in Seed Funding

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 26, 2022
0 comments

Payd, a Malaysian earned wage access solution provider, announced that it has raised US$1.7 million (RM7.5 million) in a seed funding round led by IFS Capital.
The round also received participation from 1982 Ventures and The Hive Southeast Asia, a recipient of the Dana Penjana Nasional programme, as well as a few angel investors.
Payd said that it will use the new funds to expand its Southeast Asian operations.

This includes brand building, team expansion to accelerate product development, as well as the launch of more products and services in the coming months.
Founded in 2020, Payd is an earned wage access (EWA) solution provider that enables employees to access up to 50% of their income whenever they need it.
To date, Payd said that it has garnered over 20,000 employee sign ups, and has witnessed an increase in enrollment rates of up to 25%.
Justin Kong
Justin Kong, Co-founder and CEO of Payd said,
“This funding exercise is a watershed moment for Payd. We are grateful for our partners’ trust and confidence as we continue to build and launch Payd.

In the long run, we hope to be a platform that eases the financial worries of the Malaysian workforce, helping build a better engagement between employers and employees.”
Darvesh Daswani
Darvesh Daswani, Co-founder of Payd said,
“The access to earned wage has become increasingly trendy across a number of industries.

Among the many factors driving this growth includes the lowering of household incomes and the rise of inflation. The recent pandemic only amplified the need for financial freedom.”

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WealthTech

Kenanga’s Robo-Advisor Crosses RM100 Million AUM Milestone in 2 Months

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 26, 2022
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Kenanga Digital Investing (KDI) announced that it has crossed RM100 million in asset under management (AUM) two months since its launch in mid-February this year.
Developed to make investing simpler and accessible for Malaysians, the AI – driven digital investment management platform has received 6,500 successful signups.
Licensed by the Securities Commission Malaysia, the newly launched robo-advisor offers two products – KDI Save and KDI Invest.

KDI Save allows users to earn daily returns on their savings with no lock-in period and zero management fees while KDI Invest allows customers to grow their wealth with access to global investment opportunities through US-listed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).
Ian Lloyd
“We are extremely pleased with the response from the public on KDI. Crossing RM100 million in AUM within such a short time is a significant milestone for us. More importantly, the public’s confidence and trust in Kenanga has brought us another step closer in our vision to revolutionise the way Malaysians save and grow their money. KDI aims to make investment simple and accessible for Malaysians, and this strong performance shows that KDI is what the market is looking for,”
said Ian Lloyd, Group Chief Digital Officer of Kenanga Investment Bank.

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WealthTech

Micro-Investment App Raiz Partners Now Available to Non-Maybank Users

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 27, 2022
0 comments

Raiz Malaysia, a joint venture company between Raiz Invest Australia and Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), enables its customers to link their bank cards via the micro-investment app through its partnership with Visa.
Following its launch in July 2020, Raiz was initially only available for Maybank account holders.
With Raiz’s auto-round-ups feature, cardholders can now save their spare change from everyday purchases and boost their savings in the background of life while managing their finances better.

Raiz added that it is continuing to expand the app’s functionality, mainly driven by customer feedback.
The company began its operation in Malaysia in the middle of 2020 and has more than 100,000 active users.
Through this partnership with Visa, the company can now boost its growth in the Malaysian market.
Raiz also has operations in Indonesia and is now looking to expand into Thailand with plans to introduce this offering in those markets as well.
Aidi Izham
Aidi Izham, Raiz Malaysia’s Chief Executive said,
“This agreement is a pivotal moment for Raiz in Malaysia. We are excited about the opportunities and growth we have had through our existing relationships with Maybank and PNB.

This new partnership with Visa will allow more Malaysians to access all features of the Raiz app to improve their financial well-being”.

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E-Wallets
Insurtech

Touch ‘n Go eWallet Rolls Out Travel Insurance Offering With AIA

									by Fintech News Malaysia
April 28, 2022
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TNG Digital, owner and operator of Touch ‘n Go eWallet, announced the launch of SafeTrip, its second insurance product collaboration with AIA Malaysia.
SafeTrip is a travel insurance plan for both domestic and international travel which covers travel inconvenience, medical expenses, personal accidents, and comes with extra COVID-19 protection.
It also gives international travellers an option to top-up their coverage for medical expenses related to COVID-19 to up to RM250,000 in total, enabling them to satisfy travel requirements of their destination country.

SafeTrip costs RM3 per day for domestic trips and RM10 per day for short trips in most Asian countries.
Users can buy this product directly from their Touch ‘n Go eWallet. They will have to select the travel destination, travel date, and the number of travellers to get a quotation instantly.
Once payment is completed via the eWallet, users will be covered the moment their trip starts.
According to TNG, submitting a claim is also easier and faster as the entire process from claims submission to instant claims payout is performed online.
SafeTrip is available for purchase on the Touch ‘n Go eWallet starting from today.
In July 2021, AIA had acquired a minor stake in TNG Digital as part of a long-term strategic partnership.
Effendy Shahul Hamid
Effendy Shahul Hamid, Group CEO of Touch ‘n Go Group said,
“As Hari Raya festival approaches, the introduction of this second insurance product is timely as we expect to see more Malaysians making plans to make up for lost time to reunite with their loved ones domestically and internationally.

Moreover, SafeTrip is affordable and convenient to sign up. It offers Touch ‘n Go eWallet users a rebate of up to 25% on domestic and international plans”
Ben Ng
Ben Ng, Chief Executive Officer of AIA said,
“Following the success of our first product collaboration, WalletSafe, we are excited to bring yet another innovative and personalised solution to benefit Touch ‘n Go eWallet’s over 16 million users. SafeTrip could not have come at a more appropriate time as many are looking to resume travel plans with the reopening of borders.

We believe this product is set to provide our partner’s users with the much-needed peace of mind when they go on their trips, in line with AIA’s purpose of helping people live healthier, longer and better.”

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Cloud
Digital Transformation
Sponsored

Banks Need to Avoid Risks of a Big Bang Transition When They Digitise

									by Fintech News Malaysia
May 11, 2022
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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 new products to market in an increasingly competitive and changing landscape, difficulty in automating processes and decisions as well as expensive third-party technologies required to supplement current core systems.
Reality of migrating systems towards digital core banking
A digital core banking system boosts the potential of financial services sector in four key areas; speed of innovation, openness, flexibility, and future-proofing.

If the benefits are clear, why have banks been dragging their feet when it comes to making the change?
The reality is that migrating systems toward digital core banking is filled with challenges, especially as the project comes face-to-face with the day-to-day realities of running the bank.
Any new digital core banking system has to quickly deliver business benefits, co-exist with current systems and processes and will require different resources to be successfully implemented.
This research from IDC and Thought Machine indicates that banks are not yet ready to give up legacy core banking systems.
The research shows that they will continue utilising them even as they invest and build for the future with a digital core.
What is a multicore transformation path?
The digitalisation of banks’ core banking systems will be a gradual process, following a multicore transformation path – a path that provides customers choice over their vision, strategy, and risk profile for delivering digital core banking transformation.
Banks’ complex, connected environments lead to this preference for incremental transformation in line with dynamic business objectives.
It is crucial for banks to modernise the legacy core, but they must avoid the risks of a big bang transition with their current state.
This multi-core model enables banks to “run the bank while changing the bank”.
Previous approaches to core migration saw high failure rates with up to 40% of projects failing or being stopped completely and over 70% of large transition projects either exceeding budget or time provisions.
Multicore, on the other hand, offers the path of least friction or disruption.
The multicore route to modernisation requires a well-thought-out strategy of balancing the transition phases while managing the complexity of migration.
Some of the key considerations to deliver on the promise of multicore
Each bank will follow its own multicore journey. However, they need to follow a set of principles to succeed in addressing the unique complexities of maintaining legacy systems while overseeing change.

Key sources of success in a multicore implementation approach begin with clear vision and assessment of strategy, right architectural principles, business coverage, and target operating model built into the project plans.
IDC and Thought Machine’s research, A Clear Path Ahead: Migrating to Digital Core, delves deeper into this multi-core approach highlighting the challenges that banks may face and the key pointers that all banks should follow:

Begin with the end-state in mind
Seek independent advisors
Plan in advance
Review and synchronize the transition
Early demonstration of effectiveness
Partner with experts
Understand trends and target model
Leverage emerging technologies

The “A Clear Path Ahead: Migrating to Digital Core” report by IDC and Thought Machine can be accessed here.

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Insurtech
Sponsored

The InsureTech Connect Asia 2022 Is Back for Its 3-Day Physical Event

									by Fintech News Malaysia
May 5, 2022
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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 showcase the latest insurtech innovations, world-class content, networking, and meetings with the best minds across the APAC insurance ecosystem at ITC Asia 2022.
Gather insights into what role both insurers and technology will play in the future and understand the must-know regional dynamics when looking to operate successfully from regulators across the region.
ITC Asia will feature industry challengers such as Singlife with Aviva, bolttech, Tokio Marine, Ping An Group, and many more.

Some of the key sessions include:
– Becoming an insurtech unicorn
– How ecosystem thinking is changing Asia’s insurance market
– The role of insurtech in insurance distribution
– Embedded Insurance: getting personal, relevant, and convenient insurance close to the customer
ITC Asia 2022 will be a fully-vaccinated event and will incorporate the use of industry-leading event technology to reduce unnecessary contact while enabling attendees to connect meaningfully.
The event will be held in accordance with the respective government regulations to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for all.
Attendees are strongly encouraged to exercise social responsibility in taking personal health precautions.
ITC has been attended by over 25,000 people from 65+ countries.
Founded in 2016, ITC has established itself as the biggest insurtech event in its US location in Vegas and has launched a venture in APAC with ITC Asia in Singapore.
To learn more and register for ITC Asia 2022, please visit their website.

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Payments

RHB Ties up With MPay to Offer QR Payments for Businesses

									by Fintech News Malaysia
May 12, 2022
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RHB Banking Group has established an affiliate partnership with ManagePay Services (MPay) to provide contactless payments for businesses
This partnership leverages on Application Programming Interface (API) to enable the bank’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and corporate customers to accept various bank and e-wallet transactions via the RHB DuitNow QR, which is available through MPay’s EFTPOS and Smart Android Terminal.
Merchants are also able to seamlessly capture all DuitNow QR transactions and reconcile these within their payment system, including those made via the terminal payment systems.

RHB said that it is the first Malaysian bank to integrate DuitNow QR via API connectivity, enabling real-time integration of DuitNow QR transactions with point-of-sale (POS) and mobile POS system terminals.
Chung Chee Kai
“Our digital innovation creates an easier and more convenient payment solution for merchants. As a result, our business customers are able to focus more on managing their sales and achieving digital and online efficiency, in addition to being able to accept instant payments without changing their payment process. Their customers will also benefit from the convenience and ease of completing their purchases without the need for physical interaction,”
said Chung Chee Kai, Head of Group Transaction Banking at RHB.

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Insurtech

CTOS Ties up With PolicyStreet to Offer Car Insurance and Road Tax Renewal

									by Fintech News Malaysia
May 18, 2022
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CTOS Digital, through its subsidiary company, CTOS IDS, is expanding its range of services with the launch of CTOS Car Insurance, an online platform for car insurance and road tax renewal in collaboration with local insurtech firm PolicyStreet.com.
This latest offering allows consumers to make price comparisons of policies from more than 10 insurance providers within minutes, allowing them to find the best deals in the market.
Customers can renew their insurance and road tax digitally by visiting the CTOS website and filling in their personal as well as car details.

They will receive their e-policy via e-mail within minutes of purchase, while home delivery of roadtax will be available nationwide through MYEG within 5 working days.
Collaboration with PolicyStreet will see CTOS Car Insurance platform offering consumers policies from; Tune Insurance Malaysia, AXA Affin General Insurance, Etiqa General, Takaful, Berjaya Sompo Insurance, Syarikat Takaful Malaysia Am, RHB Insurance, MSIG Insurance, Zurich General Insurance Malaysia, Pacific &, Orient Insurance Co. and Allianz General Insurance Company (Malaysia).
By comparing quotes from a large range of insurers, CTOS said that consumers will be able to find savings of up to RM1,000 from their current deals.
There will also be further discounts on car insurance quotes based on the value of premiums selected.
Additionally, consumers who successfully renew or purchase their insurance via the new platform will be able to get a free MyCTOS Score Report.
Eric Hamburger
“CTOS Car Insurance reflects how we are focusing our partnership efforts to offer consumers end-end digital solutions in increasingly varied industries.

Also, in time, we hope to be able to offer even more value by taking into account credit scores to present consumers better prices, in line with the motor insurance de-tariffication process started by Bank Negara in 2016.”
said Eric Hamburger, Group CEO of CTOS Digital.
Wilson Beh
“The strategic partnership between CTOS and an insurance technology company is the first of its kind in Malaysia.

We are proud to have partnered with CTOS and believe the collaboration will pave way to more innovative, customised and inclusive insurance protection, leveraging on credit scores and big data for all Malaysians,”
said Wilson Beh, Co-Founder of PolicyStreet.com and newly elected President of the Fintech Association of Malaysia (FAOM).

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Digital Transformation
Sponsored

At the Cusp of a BaaS Revolution, Here Are Some of the Challenges

									by Bosky S, Regional Head of BaaS, APAC, Finastra
May 20, 2022
0 comments

The future of finance is open, and the rise of Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) means this future is closer than ever.
The BaaS industry is quickly maturing, with 88% of senior APAC executives – in industries from banking and technology to healthcare and retail – recently telling Finastra that they are already implementing BaaS solutions or are planning to.
Financial institutions are evolving away from their traditional role as ‘closed shops’ and instead leveraging their banking licenses to integrate digital services directly into the products of consumer brands.
These consumer brands, or BaaS distributors, have identified the vast potential of distributing services such as buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) to consumers and corporate financing to businesses.
Finastra’s recent report, “Banking as a Service: Outlook 2022 | Paving the way for Embedded Finance” found that distributors expect overall growth to exceed a staggering 70% per annum over the next three years, with more than one third expecting to increase their revenues by more than 15% per year until 2024 by offering BaaS solutions.
There are, however, challenges ahead that need to be resolved if the BaaS industry is to reach its full potential.
For example, while distributors believe that a marketplace model will help retail and SME customers access the right product to cater their needs at better costs, they also have concerns around complexity – specifically regarding integration and regulation.
The key for distributors here will be to identify enablers, i.e. fintechs and bigtechs that help to embed financial services within distributors’ applications and platforms, that are mature enough to mitigate these issues for them.
It will also be important for distributors to consider partnerships that help them meet the needs of specific customers.

For example, corporate customers of enterprise resource planning (ERP) players require working capital loans that may need different features, pricing and terms for each sector, whereas customers of a retail chain may require BNPL and payment solutions.
The opportunity to customise offerings to highly targeted audiences is both an opportunity and a challenge of BaaS – but with the right enabler partnerships, distributors will be able to rise to this challenge and meet their customers’ needs seamlessly.
The second significant challenge distributors must resolve is that of user experience (UX). Creating a smooth and streamlined customer journey can be a time-consuming endeavour, but it’s worth it.
Many distributors already provide consumers with seamless payment experiences by offering different options like wallets, BNPL, and credit cards; but what about the needs of different types of customer?
For instance, a corporate customer will prefer a user experience that can integrate with their enterprise system, but a retail customer will favor a journey that is fast and easy to use.
Ultimately, the specific needs of a BaaS product’s target audience must be prioritised, alongside exceptional design and user interfaces.

Distributors are understandably keen to increase their customer stickiness, transaction volumes and average transaction values in order to drive increased revenues.
BaaS presents an opportunity to meet these goals without needing to obtain a banking license – a notoriously complicated, costly and time-consuming pursuit.
Furthermore, distributors typically enjoy the highest margins and maximum power in the BaaS value chain, thanks to their proximity to the end-customers. As such, their potential for growth in the space is unparalleled.
The key to maximising this opportunity will be carefully selecting the right partnerships and prioritising tailored customer journeys, enabling seamless experiences for all.
Access your copy of Finastra’s comprehensive market study of Banking-as-a-Service here.

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AI
WealthTech

Affin Bank Partners MYTHEO to Offer Robo-Advisory for the Mass Affluent

									by Fintech News Malaysia
May 19, 2022
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Affin Bank announces that it has formed a collaboration with GAX MD (MYTHEO), a robo-advisor regulated by the Securities Commission Malaysia.
MYTHEO is an algorithm-driven and automated discretionary investment portfolio management services powered by Artificial Intelligence (Al).
This collaboration is the first of its kind between AFFIN BANK and a robo-advisory service provider.

It would allow new and existing customers of AFFIN AVANCE, a financial and wealth segment for the mass affluent, to diversify their investments across the global market and fully automate their portfolio rebalancing based on market conditions.
Customers who are interested to know more about AFFIN MYTHEO may visit any of the bank’s branches within their respective localities, contact its personal financial consultants, or submit an enquiry on the bank’s website.
Datuk Wan Razly Abdullah
Datuk Wan Razly Abdullah, President & Group Chief Executive Officer of Affin Bank said,
“This partnership, which is our first collaboration of its kind with a robo-advisor, offers an alternative investment option to our new and existing AFFIN AVANCE customers, thus further enhancing our line-up of financial solutions and products offering.

Malaysia’s mass affluent category is performing exceptionally well, with an upward growth trend. There is an increasing demand for more convenient avenues to invest.”
Ronnie Tan
Ronnie Tan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of GAX MD said,
“The partnership is another step in the company’s vision to help more people achieve their financial goals.

Today, I am pleased to announce that we are collaborating with Affin Bank to offer the bank’s customers an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of digital wealth management service with a personalised touch”.

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Payments
Sponsored

Why B2B Payments Is The Next Big Domino in APAC’s Fintech Innovation Wave

									by Rohit Narang, Managing Director of APAC at Currencycloud
May 31, 2022
0 comments

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, a 2020 McKinsey report projected that Asia’s payments sector would be well positioned to exceed US$1 trillion in annual revenue by 2022 or 2023, despite also forecasting a temporary 1-8% decline in Asia’s 2020 payments revenue.
Fast-forward two years later, and it looks like US$1 trillion may be on the lower side of expectations for digital payments in Asia. The accelerated migration online across all services was also reflected in the digital financial services. In the B2C payments space, mobile-first customers in emerging Asia Pacific (APAC) countries are leapfrogging those in more mature markets, driven by e-commerce and fueling multiple fintech unicorns such as India’s Paytm, Singapore’s NIUM, and the Philippines’ Mynt.
It’s now a familiar sight for your roadside snack stall to accept e-wallet payments via QR codes, but not credit cards. With Covid-19 continuing to fuel social distancing, cash is on the downswing. Market research firm Kantar found that the average number of cash transactions dropped by 11% during the pandemic. In response to the rise in digital payments, the firm has increased its 2025 global online transaction value estimates from US$$1 trillion to US$$1.2 trillion. With rates in 2020 reaching previously forecasted levels for 2025, Kantar believes Southeast Asia has achieved five years of consumer adoption in a single year.
While innovation has continued apace in the B2C space, cross-border payments have emerged as a niche for new challengers – often marketplaces – who cut down processing times, reduce costs, and cut through red tape. With the proliferation of APIs (application programming interfaces) and embedded finance, new marketplaces can quickly offer a multitude of payment options on their apps.
However, these same missed opportunities remain largely unaddressed in the B2B space, where trust remains a major barrier to digitalising cross-border B2B payments. Many SMEs are still willing to put up with exorbitant fees and wait times largely due to fear of losing out on a good deal.
Solving the Compliance Puzzle and Navigating Different Regulatory Frameworks
Across APAC, the growth potential of B2B cross-border payments is huge, largely due to region-specific issues such as how much bank and card penetration in most APAC countries remain lower than North America or Europe.
In countries where branch-based banking is cost-prohibitive such as archipelagic nations (Indonesia and the Philippines) or with rural micro SMEs abound, online-to-offline, e-wallets, and mobile wallets are often complete alternatives to traditional branches and bank accounts. These include India’s Paytm (20 million merchants and 300 million consumers), Indonesia’s GrabKios (formerly Kudo, two million agents), and the Philippines’ GCash (46 million users) and PayMaya (40 million users).
Digitising B2B payments solutions and cross-border payments is a mountain many fintechs – with small agile teams that lack on the ground market expertise – are wary of scaling due to the high cost of compliance with around 32 different regulators across APAC.
For instance, when U.S. companies try to first scale outside their home bases, the European Union would often be the first pit stop because with one license, they are passported to 36 countries (including the U.K.). They would then expand to large Asian markets, Australia or Japan – and the journey often ends there.
Digitising B2B SME payments across APAC as a whole is difficult even for local payments players with on the ground know-how. However, regulators understand the importance of cross-border collections especially as it pertains to exports, and have made strides by working together to enhance cross-border payment infrastructures.
Singapore, for example, has announced three bilateral fintech cooperation initiatives with Thailand (Promptpay), Malaysia (DuitNow) and Australia (Fintech Bridge Agreement) in 2021 and 2022.
In April 2021, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced the linkage of Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay real-time retail payment systems, through which customers in participating banks in both countries will be able to transfer funds using just a mobile number.
In September 2021, MAS announced the phased linkage between PayNow and Malaysia’s DuitNow. By Q4 2022, customers from participating banks will be able to make real-time fund transfers using just a mobile number, as well as make retail payments by scanning DuitNow or NETS QR codes at storefronts.

In April 2022, the Australia Treasury and MAS signed the Australia-Singapore Fintech Bridge Agreement that sets out a framework for deeper bilateral and multilateral cooperation, support the establishment of fintechs looking to expand into Australia/Singapore, strengthen regulatory and policy linkages, and explore innovation on emerging fintech issues.
These are good first steps, and bode well for fintechs that wish to serve the wider APAC region. However, due to slower innovation in the B2B payments space, fintechs and traditional financial institutions alike may look to Currencycloud’s decades of expertise to build a low-risk, efficient global payment network.
Enterprise-Grade Cross-Border Payments
B2B and enterprise-level progress has been slower, perhaps arguably in part due to the large sums of money, higher security requirements and inherent risks involved.
However, Currencycloud is constantly innovating and building out our global partnerships to deliver and accelerate towards delivering enterprise grade, cross-border payments.
Using the right fintech solutions to digitise B2B payments will streamline processes, provide time and cost efficiencies for businesses, improve cash flows for vendors and provide unique insights as well as transparency to payment flows. SMEs and merchants will also be able to deliver improved shopping and transactional experiences for the customers, building loyalty and generating new revenue streams.
Incumbent banks are often a costly, opaque and time-consuming option for both SME merchants and fintech challengers, thus partners like Currencycloud have flexible and modular solutions to help fintechs expand globally with speed.
Why Now? 1.4 Trillion Reasons
Frost & Sullivan predicts Asia Pacific B2B payments revenue will double to US$1.4 trillion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate of 10.5%. Thus, the clock is ticking for payments service providers looking to set themselves apart in the burgeoning fintech space.
However, the width and breadth of payment options and providers available globally calls for a targeted approach – be it by jurisdiction, target user, or type of service – to crack the Asia Pacific B2B payments puzzle.
From neobanks, foreign exchange brokerages, remittance platforms, payment gateways, issuers, wealth managers to lenders, payment players need to find the right option for their B2B cross-border money management needs.
For payment service providers who need to get ahead of the competition and leapfrog larger and more established players while continuing to develop key products, the key is going to market earlier and scaling faster by leveraging on a modular approach, through APIs, or white label solutions.
Learn more about how Currencycloud’s modular solutions support 500 banks, fintechs and other businesses with their cross-border payments needs here.

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Insurtech

Tune Protect Malaysia Names Veteran Banker Jubin Mehta as Its New CEO

									by Fintech News Malaysia
June 1, 2022
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Tune Protect Malaysia, the general insurance arm of Tune Protect Group, announced the appointment of Jubin Mehta as its Chief Executive Officer effective 5 May 2022.
The group said in a statement that Jubin will be responsible for transforming Tune Protect Malaysia into a technologically progressive organisation, aligned to its aspiration of simplifying insurance for its customers.
Jubin has more than 18 years’ experience in the banking industry, particularly in India, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

His experience in the last 5 years, notably in the financial technology field includes bootstrapping a data analytics company as well as consulting with Axiata Digital and Courts Mammoth for projects in the digital lending space.
Jubin has worked with Standard Chartered Bank and HDFC Bank in the past, accumulating extensive banking experience in ecosystem banking, supply chain financing, cross-border trade, Small, Medium Enterprise (SME) banking and digital lending.
Rohit Nambiar
“We are excited that Jubin has joined as the Chief Executive Officer and to have him lead our operations across Malaysia.

With his extensive technical and leadership experience in the financial services and technology space prior to his move to Tune Protect Malaysia, I believe that he will create exciting synergies with the team to speed up Tune Protect’s digitalisation efforts into becoming the lifestyle insurer that everyone loves across the region”,
said Rohit Nambiar, Group Chief Executive Officer of Tune Protect.
Jubin Mehta
“I am excited to be working with the Board members, employees, business partners and all stakeholders in Tune Protect Malaysia as we make our mark in the general insurance landscape in Malaysia.

With my experience in the banking industry, particularly in SME banking, I am also thrilled to be leading the SME solutions developments across the group,”
said Jubin.

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WealthTech

Versa Launches Affordable Investment Product From RM100

									by Fintech News Malaysia
June 2, 2022
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Versa Asia, a Malaysian digital cash management platform, announced that it is expanding its product range to introduce “Versa Invest” to offer affordable wealth management in partnership with Affin Hwang Asset Management (AHAM).
Versa Invest offers three different types of low to high risk investment funds — Versa Conservative, Versa Moderate and Versa Growth.
Through a pooled investment fund managed by top global fund managers such as Blackrock, PIMCO, Vanguard and HSBC, users are able to diversify their investments across active and passive funds, allowing them to benefit from investment instruments that were once only available to the high net worth individuals.

At zero entry and exit fees, investors can start from a minimum investment amount of RM100.
Richmond Yau
Richmond Yau, Versa’s Chief Operating Officer said,
“Versa’s key product ethos is all about simplicity. Users are able to onboard in under 7 minutes and make a deposit in just 3 clicks.

Versa Invest was designed exclusively only for Versa users to level the playing field allowing for easy access to premium funds by global top fund managers,”
Versa will be launching two Versa-exclusive funds, aimed to achieve broad diversification whilst minimising risks.
The company had launched its flagship savings product, Versa Cash, a low risk money market investment fund investment last year.
Nelson Wong
Nelson Wong, Chief Technology Officer at Versa said,
“We believe this would be a great option for new investors without the knowledge or desire to continuously watch the market and pick individual funds.”

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Digital Transformation
Sponsored

8 Financial Processes Poised for Digital Transformation

									by Fintech News Malaysia
June 2, 2022
0 comments

COVID-19 accelerated trends toward remote banking and digitalisation, forcing financial institutions to embrace new technologies and processes to keep their businesses functional despite social distancing restrictions.
Now, with more and more people relying on digital solutions for interactions and transactions, the industry is turning to the next set of challenges, actively seeking to reimagine customer journeys to not only differentiate themselves from competitors, but also capture new generations of tech-savvy customers.
In a new paper, cybersecurity technology firm OneSpan explores how e-signatures, digital identity verification and authentication technologies can unlock new opportunities for financial institutions, highlighting what it believes are the top eight financial processes poised for digital transformation.
1. Remote account opening and account maintenance
According to the paper, remote bank account opening has become a necessity for banks and financial institutions must offer remote onboarding that doesn’t require a customer to physically go into a branch to complete the process.
This trend is evidenced by the positive response financial institutions like Citi saw during the pandemic where new and existing corporate clients of the Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) business opened more than 1,000 accounts online in March 2020 – a 300% increase over the previous year, the paper notes.
For OneSpan, the need to establish a digital onboarding solution is now paramount, and e-signatures and digital identity solutions will be critical for banks to implement such solutions.
Moreover, the report adds that financial institutions should look into any other related paper-based, in-person interactions that requires a signature and identity verification.
These processes can be adapted to online channels using e-forms, e-signatures, as well as digital identity tools, the report says.
2. Lending
In the lending space, e-signatures, e-forms, and digital processes can simplify and accelerate loan applications and finance contracts.
Not only that, the fact that all transactions are kept completely digital and that workflow rules are applied means that the risks associated with documents errors, such as missing signatures and data, are eliminated.
OneSpan advises firms to also put a focus on the mobile channels considering the momentum that mobile-first lending has gained over the past few years.
Against this backdrop, the firm recommends the use of two technologies: mobile e-signatures with digital audit trails, and mobile app shielding to protect it from cyberattacks.
image via Freepik
3. Residential mortgage
Although digitising the mortgage process has been a hot topic in the industry for the past decade, development has been slow.
But the pandemic has created renewed urgency to drive innovation, regulations, and adoption faster.
Moving forward, OneSpan expects to see greater adoption of the digital mortgage process, from applications to closings and remote online notarisation, building on the rise in usage of internet mortgages during COVID-19.
US Bancorp handled 80% of mortgage applications online from March to May 2020 in the US, reported American Banker in July 2020, showcasing how big the trend has become since the beginning of the pandemic.
4. Life insurance
In the life insurance space, COVID-19 has accelerated the need to digitise the paper-dependent industry.
This has fueled the adoption of e-signatures, which firms view as an immediate enabler for digital transactions that can be deployed instantly to agents as a standalone solution, or integrated with an agent portal, e-app, or core system.
According to the paper, these solutions are now being applied extensively in new business applications, but also in areas including e-disclosure delivery, agent licensing and appointment, e-policy delivery, and beneficiary changes.
5. Wealth management
In wealth management and private banking, rapid adoption of digital tools has allowed financial advisors to maintain relationships with their clients and deliver personalised service from home.
Moving forward, wealth management businesses must optimise their new remote processes and create a convenient, intuitive customer experience.
This should include using embracing e-signatures and digital identity verification to meet the services expectations of both new and existing clients and improve customer acquisition and retention, OneSpan says.
6. Corporate banking and treasury management
Commercial banking processes can be very complex, and oftentimes involve ad hoc, customised agreements and contracts that require signature authorisations and approvals for processes.
In the new normal, speed and convenience can make the difference for banks, allowing businesses to increase customer loyalty and retention.
Hence, financial institutions should not only focus on streamlining processes by leveraging technologies such as e-signatures, but also focus on modernising the corporate client experience by, for example, introducing mobile capabilities such as mobile apps, mobile authentication, and mobile app shielding, OneSpan says.
7. Auto finance and leasing
Increased competition, the shift to zero-emission vehicles, depressed margins, the pandemic and reduced sales have put pressure on the auto industry, subsequently affecting financial institutions and lenders involved in auto and equipment finance and leasing.
This environment has forced banks to look at ways to leverage technology to reduce costs and improve operating margins, turning their sights to technologies such as e-signatures and digital identity verification methods to help minimise contact during sales processes and reduce costly manual steps.
For OneSpan, three technologies in particular are worth being considered by auto and asset finance companies: automated document verification, where a photo of a document like a passport, a driver’s license or a national identity (ID) card is analysed by software to determine its authenticity; facial comparison with liveness detection, where a selfie of a customer is compared with the image on their passport or ID card, which can then be used for remote financing applications; and e-signatures, which can be utilised to capture the intent of the signer to be bound by the terms and conditions in a contract.
8. Employee processes
Finally, the eighth and last financial process that should be digitised, according to OneSpan, is employee processes.
With the risk of COVID-19 still lingering, the top priority for financial institutions remains to this day to maintain operations in a way that is safe for employees.
And one of the easiest way for them to protect both their employees returning to the office and those still working from home is by removing the need to manually handle paper, digitising paperwork and introducing e-signatures, the paper concludes.
The Beyond Business Continuity: The New Normal in Remote Banking and Insurance whitepaper by OneSpan can be accessed here.

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Digital Transformation
Lending
Sponsored

SME Lending in APAC Is the Major Opportunity for Banking-as-a-Service

									by Bosky S, Regional Head of BaaS, APAC, Finastra
June 9, 2022
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Opportunities are endless with Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), and nowhere is this more true than in Asia Pacific (APAC).
Banks in the region, particularly in hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong, have embraced and become leaders in open banking, automated services, ever-improving APIs, and evolving customer expectations.
Now, BaaS has created exciting new propositions for consumers and reconfigured the value chain for banks and financial institutions.
A recent global report by Finastra, Banking as a Service: Outlook 2022 | Paving the way for Embedded Finance, revealed the true extent of the potential for digital disruption and transformation across multiple sectors.
This growth isn’t just on the horizon, its already here. 88% of senior executives we spoke to in APAC more than in any other region globally  have implemented BaaS solutions or are planning to. In turn, the BaaS market is expected to reach a value of US$3.6 trillion by 2030.
Of the key use cases we examined, ranging from lending in retail banking to cash management services for corporate banking — the growth potential of one use case stood clearly apart; lending for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The issue with SME lending
Source: iStock
Every SME has different lending needs to grow and run their business, and acquiring loans from traditional banks is cumbersome, with lengthy processes, exhaustive documentation requirements and limited credit options.
SMEs in APAC make an outsized contribution to the region’s economy, accounting for around 98% of enterprises and 50% of employment.
Despite their importance, SMEs continue to face significant barriers to their growth, one of the foremost being a lack of access to finance.
Difficulties in demonstrating creditworthiness to traditional lenders are a major issue for SMEs in APAC, especially in developing nations where the majority of SMEs are still heavily reliant on cash.
Research by the World Trade Organisation has found that over half of trade finance requests by SMEs are rejected globally, compared to just 7% for multinational companies, often due to a lack of information.
This issue has been exacerbated by the pandemic, as banks have sought to de-risk by moving away from funding SMEs.
Now, SMEs in APAC face a US$2 trillion funding gap, meaning these companies face an existential risk as they have less resilience and flexibility in dealing with the shocks brought on by the crisis
Enter Banking-as-a-Service
Source: iStock
Clearly, a change is needed, regardless of external pandemic pressure.
A greater marketplace of specific SME targeted loan products is required, offering evermore choice to small and medium business owners.
For this reason, SME lending as a banking product is expected to rise quickly in the coming years.
This growth isn’t driven by one sector, but the entire spectrum, spanning retail to technology, banking to healthcare.
BaaS enables an ‘API marketplace’ to be embedded in a distributor experience, allowing SMEs to get access to sector-specific lending products.
For instance, taking online retail as an example, e-commerce platforms such as eBay, Etsy or Shopify gain access to data that helps them to predict and forecast an SME’s capacity to repay a loan.
A provider, such as PayPal, can then offer an affordable business loan at a fixed fee, helping to plug the financing shortfall and bypassing the needs for SMEs to acquire a bank loan.
This marketplace provides SME customers with a greater choice of products and providers, and will excel if it caters to specific needs of different businesses in multiple industries.
There is a growing pool of evidence showing the vast potential of API marketplaces.
Source: iStock

The most high-profile of these is Shopify, which has partnered with the likes of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Barclays to offer SME lending, but currently does not offer clients the option to select the bank of their choosing.
It isn’t just the end customer that benefits from the marketplace model.
Distributors can deepen relationships with SME clients, and are presented with an opportunity to cross-sell and increase customer stickiness.
Banks, on the other hand, have increased customer acquisition at a low cost by leveraging the distributor’s customer base. Finally, enablers can provide solutions to an underserved-but-growing segment, creating additional revenue streams.
Finastra’s study points towards widespread support from distributors for a marketplace model, but highlighted a few considerations.
Firstly, too many options for customers will likely confuse them, although this can be mitigated by creating industry-specific marketplaces.
Secondly, large organisations like Amazon or Alibaba – that bear significant negotiating power – could opt for strategic partnerships with single banks.
Finally, regulatory differences across multiple countries must be overcome, if a consistent offering is to be provided by all banks.
Despite these reservations, BaaS will bring about dramatic changes to SME lending, creating greater choice and fewer funding rejections for the end customer.
The marketplace model will drive competition and unlock new possibilities for underserved SMEs, which truly are the lifeblood of any economy.
As such, we all stand to benefit from the emergence of BaaS.

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Payments

Razer Fintech Acquires Indonesian Digital Payments Firm E2Pay

									by Fintech News Malaysia
June 9, 2022
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Razer Fintech, the financial technology arm of Razer, announced the acquisition of PT E2Pay Global Utama (E2Pay), an Indonesian B2B2C digital payment facilitators and e-money player.
Founded in 2012, E2Pay provides a breadth of payment solutions to merchants and financial institutions, including payment gateway, e-money, and remittance services licenses in Indonesia.
These services complement Razer Merchant Services, Razer Fintech‘s business-to-business arm regionally, as it facilitates cross-border payments for its 60,000 merchants to Indonesia.

E2Pay’s payment gateway supports high-growth e-commerce verticals, including online marketplaces, professional services, travel and tourism, as well as other segments throughout Indonesia, with some of E2Pay’s most notable merchants consisting of Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Traveloka and Blibli.com.
The Indonesian fintech player also connects major payment channels and supports local and alternative payment methods, including card schemes, internet banking, mobile banking, e-money, virtual accounts, offline points, and personal financing to provide a comprehensive local payment platform for more than 500 merchants in the region.
The E2Pay e-money platform, MBayar, serves over 500,000 registered users and supports payments for credit or data plans, bill payments, QR payments, cash withdrawals and fund transfer services.
Li Meng Lee
“E2Pay is one of Indonesia’s very few digital payment players that has a comprehensive set of licenses across various payment gateway services, e-money, and remittance.

The acquisition of E2Pay allows us to accelerate our entry into Indonesia, one of the fastest-growing digital economies in Southeast Asia, as well as be able to better serve the digital payment needs of our regional and global merchants as the single partner of choice.”
said Lee Li Meng, CEO of Razer Fintech.

Rudy Danandjaja
“E2Pay are very happy to have Razer Fintech onboard.

We hope that the synergy between E2Pay and Razer Fintech will enable both organizations to tap on our merchant base to grow, expand and scale our platform’s reach across Southeast Asia.”
said Rudy Danandjaja, Chairman of E2Pay.

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WealthTech

StashAway Launches Flexible Portfolios to Give Its Investors More Control

									by Fintech News Malaysia
June 20, 2022
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Southeast Asian digital wealth manager StashAway launched Flexible Portfolios, its first product in Malaysia that offers investors the choice to customise their portfolios.
Flexible Portfolios allows investors to pick the asset classes they want, decide their exact allocations, and change them at any time.
According to StashAway, the Flexible Portfolios product was highly requested by its clients who want to control their investments based on their own market views and holdings outside its app.

Flexible Portfolios has two features that make these customised investments different from brokerages. Firstly, investors are able to easily customise their portfolios by picking their desired asset classes.
StashAway curates the best exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for more than 55 asset classes such as Emerging Markets, S&P500, REITs, Gold, Energy, Government Bonds, and more.
The underlying funds feature ETFs from global fund managers, including iShares, SPDR, VanEck, Vanguard, ARK, and GlobalX.
The second feature would be risk management as StashAway calculates the portfolio’s potential downside to ensure that investors know how much risk they are taking on as they customise a portfolio.
StashAway will also inform investors when their portfolio’s risk level changes due to changing economic conditions.
In addition to that, StashAway is offering an entire year of free investing for Flexible Portfolios by waiving the management fee on any fresh funds until 30 June 2023 as part of the launch.
Wong Wai Ken
Wong Wai Ken, Country Manager, StashAway Malaysia said,
“We really value feedback from our investors, and many were keen to create or customise their own portfolios according to their risk appetites.

We are excited that our clients are becoming more and more savvy as they invest with us, and are pleased to enable them to have a say while we still deliver on two of our core values: investment intelligence and risk management.”

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Digital Transformation

UOB Finlab’s Jom Transform Accelerator to Focus On Women-Led SMEs This Year

									by Fintech News Malaysia
June 20, 2022
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UOB Malaysia and The FinLab announced the launch of the fourth edition of its innovation accelerator Jom Transform Programme (JTP) which will be conducted virtually on The FinLab Online.
The FinLab Online is a regional digital platform launched on 17 July 2020 to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups tap the expertise of industry mentors from UOB and its regional ecosystem partners virtually.
The theme for this year is ‘JTP: Womenpreneur Edition’ which aims to support female entrepreneurs through digital solutions that drive productivity, save costs and grow revenue.

The first cohort will undergo a three-week business transformation curriculum starting 28th June 2022.
Participants will also have access to online workshops, video tutorials and webinars in digital marketing, business operations and e-commerce.
To further accelerate their digitalisation efforts, participants will also receive complimentary subscriptions to JomX solution of choice including cloud accounting systems, artificial intelligence and data analytics, by a host of JTP ecosystem partners for up to 13 months.
Since the launch of JTP in 2019, the programme has enabled more than 400 Malaysian SMEs to embark on their digitalisation journey.
Ng Wei Wei
Ng Wei Wei, Chief Executive Officer of UOB Malaysia said,
“With women entrepreneurs making up only 20 percent of Malaysian SMEs, we see potential in supporting female-led businesses to thrive, particularly in e-commerce. And this is why the bank is creating an ecosystem through Jom Transform Programme to connect women entrepreneurs to one another and open doors to opportunities. As the needs of businesses evolve in line with new market realities, we want to also provide them with the right tools to future proof their businesses in this digitalised world.”

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Blockchain/Bitcoin

Luno First in Malaysia to Get SC Approval to Offer LINK and UNI Trading

									by Fintech News Malaysia
June 21, 2022
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Digital asset exchange Luno today announced that it is the first to be approved by the Securities Commission Malaysia to offer Chainlink (LINK) and Uniswap (UNI) for trading on its platform.
Users can now buy, sell and store LINK and UNI on the Luno app and website, alongside its existing cryptocurrency offerings.
As part of the launch of the new coins, investors will get 50% off Instant Buy and Sell and reduced Luno Exchange fees for both Chainlink and Uniswap from now till 20 July 2022.

Additionally, Luno has also launched its USDC Savings Wallet and the two new crypto offerings on its Singapore platform.
The savings wallet for USDC is a good avenue for new customers to grow their investments passively as it offers a familiar interest product to traditional banking.
However, Luno said in a statement that while LINK and UNI meets its standards for safety, being listed on its app is not an endorsement of its future potential as an investment.
Luno went on to add that even though it assesses prospective assets based on security, compliance, and utility, the company would advise users looking to invest in crypto to do their research and exercise good judgement before investing.
Aaron Tang
Aaron Tang, Country Manager of Luno Malaysia shared,
“While it’s important to note that these newer crypto applications are still in their early stages, at Luno, we believe it is important that we give investors access to them while offering the careful guidance and rigorous security that we are known and trusted for.

Support for any cryptocurrency requires careful technical and compliance review and is subject to regulatory approval by the Securities Commission of Malaysia. Our priority remains to ensure the same simple and secure experience that has enabled it to successfully support investors worldwide as they get started with cryptocurrency.”

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