Daily Fintech Crunch: 30/04/2022

Dear All

Welcome to today’s fintech crunch. As usual, today I’m bringing you the most essential fintech bites you need to know today.

? Fintech:

• Despite limited access to traditional banking services, Southeast Asia has seen a rise in the usage of digital financial services due to increased smartphone adoption and strong e-commerce growth. Today, the region is gaining traction as a hub for fintech innovation in a variety of industries, including payments, loans, insurance, and investment.

• Nium, a $2 billion start-up, is on course to produce roughly $150 million in annual worldwide revenues this year, with Europe accounting for between $80 million and $90 million in sales.

• Trusting Social, a Vietnam-based AI-powered credit rating platform has raised $65 million from The Sherpa Company, a Masan Group affiliate, for the first closure of its Series C fundraising round.

• Visa has chosen Cymonz, Moneytree, Perfios, TallyKhata, and TripleA to be part of the Visa Accelerator Program in Asia Pacific's 2022 cohort.

• Fawry, an e-payments platform in Egypt, became the country's first unicorn on the EGX in 2020 and is now looking towards a partial US listing.

• EZ-Link has announced the release of an improved EZ-Link Wallet, which was created in conjunction with Mastercard.

• This earnings season, the Fintech IPO Index is still in free fall , despite conflicting signals on consumer spending.

• Bank Negara Malaysia has finally released the list of successful candidates after a month of waiting. Before they begin operations, successful applicants must go through a period of operational preparedness that will be certified by BNM through an audit.

• Signicat, a major European provider of digital identification and electronic signature solutions, is purchasing all of the shares in Sphonic, a fraud-fighting firm based in the United Kingdom, for an undisclosed price. A significant portion of the consideration will be reinvested in Signicat by existing management shareholders.

• NALA, a Tanzanian fintech firm, has partnered with Cellulant, a Pan-African payments company located in Kenya, to monitor and facilitate client remittance payments from the United Kingdom and the United States to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Ghana.

?? Crypto & DeFi:

• At the Financial Times' Crypto & Digital Assets Summit, Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, warned that crypto service providers must be able to handle risks.

• After Twitter's board of directors revealed they had accepted a takeover bid from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the meme coin Dogecoin soared 27% to a high of 16.5 cents on Monday but has subsequently calmed down to around 14 cents today.

• Panama's National Assembly passed a law allowing for private and public usage of digital assets on Thursday, making it the latest country to go forward with cryptocurrency legislation.

?? Metaverse & NFTs:

• In the face of poor profitability, Meta will reduce investment in long-term projects such as its metaverse program. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, a permanent, linked internet world is still years away.

• Snapchat creator Evan Spiegel criticized Metaverse goals as "ambiguous and speculative."

• In the metaverse, you can now kiss . A new virtual reality headgear gives your lips, teeth, and tongue lifelike sensations.

?? Report of the Day:

• The COVID-19 epidemic raises the question of whether the FSB's previous conclusions on the relationship between fintech startups, huge technology corporations ("BigTechs"), and incumbent financial institutions still hold true. The perspectives of incumbent financial institutions on the competitive impact of BigTechs varied, even between countries. Read full report here .

Hope you are able to find time this Saturday to read the newsletter

Until tomorrow, goodbye and good night.

–Arjun Vir Singh.