Malaysia’s fintech scene is becoming increasingly active, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of all the important events, here’s March’s edition of our news roundup featuring the top 5 stories in the Fintech Malaysia scene. If you’re interested to check out February’s news round up you can read more here
Grab Announces Grab Financial
With Grab’s merger with Uber grabbing all the headlines recently it’s easy to miss their previous announcement on their fintech play.
Following Grab’s previous announcement on GrabPay and acquisition of Kudo, Anthony Tan, Co Founder and Group CEO announced the company’s ambitions to further strengthen their play in the fintech ecosystem through Grab Financial during his keynote at Money 20/20. Grab Financial will encompass all of Grab’s fintech offerings, including payments services, rewards and loyalty services, agent network services and micro-loans.
Grab’s strong numbers of over 86 million downloads and over 2.6 million drivers is no laughing matter and is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Grab Financial certainly stands a strong chance in disrupting the fintech market in a significant way. Read more here
Bank Negara Issues 3rd Payment Reform, ICTF
Bank Negara Malaysia has issued the Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework (ICTF), which it thinks will help propel Malaysia’s cashless ambitions
The framework aims to to foster an efficient, competitive and innovative payment landscape in Malaysia by enabling the interoperability of credit transfer services and promoting collaborative competition (co-opetition) between banks and non-bank electronic money (e-money) issuers through fair and open access to shared payment infrastructure.
To find out more about the specifics on what it entails, check out our piece here
SC Opens Up Application For New P2P Lending and ECF Players
Chairman of the Securities Commission Malaysia, Tan Sri Ranjit Singh announced during the SC Annual Report media briefing that the regulator will be widening access to alternative based investing avenues.
This includes Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and Equity Crowdfunding as a part of their continued effort to democratise access to investment and fostering market inclusiveness. Read more here
AirAsia Eyes ICO
Tony Fernandes, during his keynote at Money2020 was mulling the possibility of holding an ICO and the potential of blockchain for their loyalty program. That idea seems to have since developed into a plan, from April onwards, AirAsia’s websites will be quoting ticket prices to customers in both fiat currency as well as in BigCoin though details on the said ICO is yet to be available. Read More here
MBSB Acquires Asian Finance Bank, Looking to Adopt Fintech
After many years of seeking a full banking license via M&A with negotiations with numerous banks, the saga ends with MBSB acquiring Asian Finance Bank.
The group now sets their eyes on adopting fintech, full details of what exactly that entails are still a little fuzzy at the moment. Read more here
