What The FinTech #104 - 10 Jul 2022

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What was the FinTech this week in:???

SINGAPORE

1. Fintech startup Sleek obtains major payment institution licence
2. MAS mulls tighter regulations on crypto platforms
3. Singapore-based crypto lender Vauld suspends withdrawals
4. ShopBack seeks edge in financial services, adds over 300 staff in last 6 months

Fintech startup Sleek obtains major payment institution licence

Singapore based corporate services company Sleek has been granted a major payment institution (MPI) licence issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore effective from Jul 1, 2022. The licence will allow Sleek to expand its business account suite of services with cross-border transfers, account issuance and e-money issuance to a wider group of SME clients. The Sleek business account is among the latest service offerings launched by the company, alongside debit card issuance as well as local and cross-border payments and collections. Other services offered by Sleek include company incorporation, accounting, taxation, corporate secretarial services and CFO (chief financial officer) as a service.?

MAS mulls tighter regulations on crypto platforms

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is considering tighter measures on cryptocurrency trading platforms. The MAS is now considering additional consumer protection safeguards on cryptocurrency platforms. These may include placing limits on retail participation and rules on the use of leverage when transacting in cryptocurrencies. The authority has already restricted marketing and advertising of cryptocurrency services by cryptocurrency platforms in public areas since January; the tightened curbs have included the removal of cryptocurrency ATMs from public areas.?

Singapore-based crypto lender Vauld suspends withdrawals

Singapore based crypto lending and trading platform Vauld said on Monday (Jul 4) that it would suspend withdrawals and trading and seek new investors, mentioning that it was facing “financial challenges” due to “the volatile market conditions, and the financial difficulties of their key business partners inevitably affecting them, and the current market climate, which has led to a significant amount of customer withdrawals in excess of a US$197.7 million since Jun 12. Highlighting the latest sign of stress in the embattled crypto industry.?

ShopBack seeks edge in financial services, adds over 300 staff in last 6 months

Singapore based ShopBack, a cashback app, is looking to expand deeper into financial services and hire more staff in payments, compliance and engineering-related roles this year. The company said it hired over 300 employees to its team in the past 6 months, excluding staff added through the acquisition of buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup hoolah. ShopBack’s website lists 231 contract and full-time job openings across various roles, bucking the trend of massive layoffs that have afflicted the region’s tech scene as startups slash costs amid a downturn. Last December, ShopBack acquired hoolah as part of its foray into financial services. ShopBack recently launched a feature called ShopBack Pay to allow over 2 million users in Singapore and Australia to pay at more than 3,000 merchant outlets.

CHINA

1. Ant Group open sources privacy software
2. QQ music software of Tencent tested its first NFT avatars and the “virtual music” room
3. Worldline, Weixin Pay team up to boost cross-border ecommerce in China

Ant Group open sources privacy software

Chinese fintech behemoth Ant Group has made its "privacy-preserving Computation Framework" open source. The framework is designed to preserve user privacy while the firm carries out data analysis and machine learning and address pain points in multiparty collaboration on information flows. It integrates a range of Ant Group’s privacy computing technologies and covers the whole information life cycle, including secure multi-party computation, differential privacy, and homomorphic encryption. Ant has made the framework, called SecretFlow, available on GitHub and Chinese alternative Gitee

QQ music software of Tencent tested its first NFT avatars and the “virtual music” room

Tencent has started a trial of its non-fungible token( avatars) and profile picture and tested “virtual room” in the QQ music application. This function of a “virtual room” will offer the service of inviting friends and others and can listen to a virtual room together. Mobile(Android) users can use this latest service of Tencent of the non-fungible token(avatars), profile picture “virtual room.” The average price of one PFP will be 0.88 yuan, which will be limited to 40 thousand versions only. QQ music is china’s second most used music application and QQ music has a new audience base of 217 million users. Some reports also mentioned that at the end of 2021, the QQ music application generated a 7.86 billion Chinese yuan revenue.

Worldline, Weixin Pay team up to boost cross-border ecommerce in China

Worldline has teamed with Weixin (the mainland Chinese version of WeChat) to integrate merchants onto the latter’s social platform and facilitate cross-border payments. The partnership translates into a mini-programme that integrates merchants into the social platform. Worldline facilitates this integration and ensures that Weixin payments are widely accepted. Worldline officials have stated that Worldline allows European ecommerce customers to integrate their mini programme into the Weixin platform. The aim is to increase customer loyalty and harness the Chinese users’ purchasing power. The company announced that they are already introducing their multi-channel mobile payment solution to retailers all over Europe. Weixin is an ecosystem used by more than 1 billion Chinese people for all types of activities, from chatting, journaling to researching their leisure activities, all the way to shopping and payments. Under the name WeChat, Weixin is also popular with Chinese people living abroad.

ASIA

1. India offers UPI to the world
2. WeChat Pay and AliPay+ launch in Qatar
3. Indonesian construction tech platform raises US$4m in seed funding led by Go-Ventures
4. Cambodia's central bank launches KHQR code payment service; govt to promote wider use of mobile retail payments

India offers UPI to the world

India is making a host of its e-governance tools - including the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Aadhaar identity service - available to other countries via open APIs. Available via the India Stack website, the project is "a set of open APIs and digital public goods that aim to unlock the economic primitives of identity, data, and payments at population scale". Says the site: "The principles, technologies, and functionality of India Stack can be applied in any country. None of the systems which comprise India Stack require any proprietary technology or intellectual property which would preclude their implementation in any other country."?

WeChat Pay and AliPay+ launch in Qatar

Qatar National Bank (QNB) has become the first bank in Qatar to launch mobile payment services WeChat Pay and AliPay+. WeChat Pay and AliPay+ use QR codes to scan and process transfers via mobile apps, facilitating payments for users. The introduction of these new payment solutions makes it easier and more convenient for merchants to attract shoppers who are travelling abroad.?

Indonesian construction tech platform raises US$4m in seed funding led by Go-Ventures

Indonesian construction technology platform Juragan Material has raised US$4 million in seed funding led by Go-Ventures, the venture capital firm backed by GoTo. Global trading firm Susquehanna International Group also participated in this round. The company also intends to strengthen its market penetration of its business-to-business (B2B) construction and building material marketplace, which provides contractors and project owners procurement solutions for sourcing building materials. Juragan Material’s platform offerings include building material products, live inventory stock availability and integrated logistics.?

Cambodia's central bank launches KHQR code payment service; govt to promote wider use of mobile retail payments

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on Monday launched the KHQR code payment service, aiming at promoting the wider use of mobile retail payments in the South-East Asian country. KHQR is a universal quick response (QR) code system created for retail payments in the country, adding that it only requires a single QR for receiving payment from any mobile app including the Bakong app. Bakong is the kingdom's only all-in-one mobile payment and banking app. Users can scan the KHQR codes generated by merchants via Bakong or other supported apps - and vice versa - for transactions in Cambodian riels and US dollars. The KHQR would help businesses to accept digital payment from users of any participating bank through a single QR code and make transactions easier for customers. 37 banking and financial institutions have participated in the KHQR code payment service, and 29 of them have successfully run it at some 230,000 shops across the country.

BLOCKCHAIN - CRYPTO - DIGITAL ASSETS - DE FI

1. Goldman Sachs executes first Bitcoin futures trade in Asia
2. Delio unveils South Korea's first 'crypto bank'
3. Trading dries up on India crypto exchanges as new tax kicks in
4. MakerDAO members shoot down proposal for more centralization

Goldman Sachs executes first Bitcoin futures trade in Asia

Banking giant Goldman Sachs has executed the first block trade of Bitcoin (BTC) futures in Asia, through the intermediation of GFI Securities LLC, a subsidiary of brokerage provider BGC Partners. this is the first-ever intermediated block trade of CME Group Bitcoin options contracts in Asian markets, and it was arranged between Cumberland DRW LLC and Goldman Sachs. BGC was planning to launch electronic platforms and voice/hybrid listed brokerage desks in major financial centers, anticipating growth in the cryptocurrency sector.

Delio unveils South Korea's first 'crypto bank'

South Korea's Delio, has launched the country's first cryptocurrency bank, offering a money market deposit account (MMDA) that enables crypto deposit and withdrawal at any time. Founded in 2018, Delio already offers a host of crypto-related services but says that it now has a virtual asset service provider (VASP) certificate, enabling it to move into areas such as deposits, loans and asset transactions. The MMDA account enables the deposit and withdrawal of crypto assets at any time and offers daily compound earnings regardless of the performance when storing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple.?

Trading dries up on India crypto exchanges as new tax kicks in

Warnings from Indian crypto exchanges that a controversial new transaction tax would erode trading are coming true, with volumes evaporating since the levy took effect. Three exchanges - ZebPay, WazirX and CoinDCX - suffered declines of between 60 per cent and 87 per cent in the value of daily trading immediately after the 1 per cent tax deductible at source became effective on Jul 1, data from CoinGecko show. A fourth, Giottus, saw trading sink 70 per cent. Those steep declines came from already depressed trading levels, as a combination of plunging prices, unfavourable tax treatment and difficulty getting cash onto exchanges combined to depress the once-hot market.?

MakerDAO members shoot down proposal for more centralization

MakerDAO members turned up in record numbers to preserve the principles of decentralization, setting new precedents for future DAO governance. On Monday, the members of MakerDAO showed up to consider three proposals that would have reorganized the leadership of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) into something that more closely resembles a traditional corporation, complete with a board of directors. The proposals were drafted as potential solutions for making the DAO more efficient and more capable of executing “high-level decisions.” More than 60% of its members voting against the three proposals drafted.?

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