Author: Fintech News Malaysia

Skolafund, a crowdfunding platform for students in need announced that it has been completely acquired by one of Asia’s biggest donation crowdfunding platforms. Skolafund successfully fundraised on the Ata Plus Equity Crowdfunding (ECF) platform in February 2017. The deal reportedly gives investors in the ECF round a return of 10% on their investments. Fintech News Malaysia reached out to both parties to confirm the acquiring party but both Skolafund and Ata Plus declined to comment citing that the party prefers to remain anonymous. According to their press release, to-date, Skolafund has crowdsourced scholarships to the tune of RM1.6 million, benefitting …

Hong Leong Bank unveiled a new, secure and seamless eToken for their Corporate and Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SME) customers. The eToken has authentication technology built-in, with additional biometric facial recoginition technology for mobile devices which meets strict regulatory security requirements. This latest feature uses facial recognition capabilities to authenticate log-ins and approve payments on Hong Leong ConnectFirst (“HL ConnectFirst”), Hong Leong Banks’s business online banking platform. With HL ConnectFirst eToken, Corporates and SMEs are now able to perform banking activities without the need to carry a physical token The eToken will also be integrated with the upcoming HL ConnectFirst mobile banking…

Today, Stripe, a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet, announced its official launch in Malaysia. It also announced a partnership with Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet) to make FPX available to businesses in the country. Valued at US$ 35 Billion, Bloomberg reports that Stripe is the 3rd most valuable company in the United States. Fintech News Malaysia first reported on the beta testing of Stripe as far back as February 2019. With this launch in Malaysia, any online company in the country can now gain access to Stripe’s entire product stack, to launch, run and…

Following the success of its earlier launch of their online medical card AXA eMedic in April 2018, AXA Affin today unveiled their AXA eMedic Family plan. Similar to their earlier digital product, the AXA eMedic family plan can be purchased digitally within 10 minutes and is priced affordably with prices as low as RM 150 per month for a family of four with coverage up to RM 100,000. Our vision is to be the preferred health and protection insurer in Malaysia especially for millennials. With the advancement of new technology, parents do not have to go through the hassle of…

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) today launched its latest offering, i-Invest. It is a self-service online platform that is accessible within the Members section of i-Akaun and enables eligible members to directly invest a portion of their Account 1 savings into unit trust funds offered by EPF-approved Fund Management Institutions (FMIs). In his speech EPF Chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said, “This new era with its push for constant innovation has given the EPF the opportunity to disrupt the financial industry and transform our ways in order to give better value to our members. “The i-Invest not only enables eligible…

United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Bhd (UOB Malaysia) today announced the 16 businesses selected to participate in The FinLab’s Jom Transform Programme. The businesses selected to participate in the Jom Transform Programme are from a wide range of sectors including food manufacturing and distribution, food and beverage, healthcare, business consulting, automotive, logistics, and manufacturing. Each expressed a willingness to explore new ways of doing business and to adopt technology for increased productivity. By implementing digital solutions, they hope to improve their workflow processes, to drive sales and customer loyalty and to create greater brand awareness. The small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) also…

BigPay, Air Asia Group’s fintech focused company announced today the launch of their international remittance service, which enables users to send money directly from Malaysia to bank accounts in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with no hidden fees and extra charges, they claim. This is the first wave of BigPay’s international remittance rollout, with additional corridors to be announced in the near future. Commenting on the launch Chris Davison, CEO and Co-Founder, BigPay said, “We’re focused on democratising financial services in ASEAN, so it’s an exciting moment for us to be able to offer Malaysians a cheaper and better…

Digital payments are becoming the payment method of choice in Malaysia, with 70 percent of consumers preferring to visit merchants that accept digital payments compared to those that only accept cash, according to the Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes Study 2018. This is an increase of 21 percent compared to the previous year. The sample size of this study is relatively small, with only 500 Malaysians between the age of 18-60 surveyed, so it may or may not represent an entirely accurate picture of Malaysian’s attitude towards digital payments. Over half of the respondents expect their use of digital payments to…

Building upon the success of Trust Score, CoinGecko today announced Trust Score 2.0, which will bring about a more robust exchange ranking system. This was launched, following several high-profile cryptocurrency exchange closures and hacks during the first half of 2019, leading to losses of over $270 million. This update will go beyond liquidity measurements and will introduce four new major measurements, namely, exchanges’ API technical competency, scale of operations, estimated cryptocurrency reserves, and regulatory compliance. Earlier in May 2019, CoinGecko launched Trust Score to provide additional insights into exchanges’ liquidity through orderbook and web traffic analysis. This was necessary to…

As blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) move from their open source and peer-to-peer beginnings and enter the mainstream, companies are rushing to file patent applications. In this area, China-based companies largely dominate their international counterparts and have so far filed the most patents related to blockchain. According to IPR Daily, a Chinese intellectual property news site, China represented 67% of the world’s global blockchain patent applications in the first half of 2019. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is the company that filed the most blockchain patents, topping the list with 322 blockchain patents, followed by PingAn with 274 patents, and…

kiplePark, a wholly-owned brand of Green Packet Berhad, announced the launch of their license plate recognition (LPR) technology which they to be the first in Malaysia. The kiplePark LPR is a system where users only need to register their car license plate number using the kiplePark app. Upon entering the car park, the users will receive a notification and e-Ticket on kiplePark app and while exiting, the kiplePark LPR system will automatically scan the car license plate number and payment will be automatically deducted from the users’ e-wallet. kiplePark shared that over the past few years its AI enabled system…

XOX Mobile an MNVO operator is the latest in the long line of companies joining the e-wallet game in Malaysia. XOX Mobile’s CEO, Ng Kok Heng told local media that they are eyeing to capture 10% of the market within the first year of launching their e-wallet. The group will reportedly allocate RM 33 million to expand its e-wallet function by developing a new app to support micropayments, issuance of Mastercards and peer-to-peer transfers. The telco seems confident that it will be able to build upon its existing ecosystem to compete in Malaysia’s extremely crowded e-wallet market. Despite the group’s…

Jom Parking a startup that enables digital payments for on-street parking has announced that their app now supports GrabPay as a payment option. This is in addition to existing methods like online banking, debit card and credit cards. According to their media statement, JomParking now has more than 300,000 users. Their service seems to be largely focused within the Greater Klang Valley Area. “JomParkir is extremely excited about this partnership. We are proud to be partnering with Grab. The new payment option is a good alternative in helping Malaysians to reduce the pain points in parking payment such as cash…

Home-grown tech company Dapat Vista announced the official launch of its government e-payments service, MyPay. They first announced their foray into the market in January 2019 when they launched the beta version of their service, the company started out as a SMS service provider for various government departments and agencies since 2000. To date the platform has enabled services with agencies such as the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN), the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ), The Election Commission of Malaysia (SPR), the RAM Credit Information Sdn Bhd (RAMCI) and many more. The platform will enable Malaysians to check their…

Experts in both the public and private sectors all agreed that ASEAN stands to be at the forefront of the development of financial technology fintech by making financial services and financing available to both the 53% of unbanked population and MSMEs in ASEAN. However, there are regional and domestic gaps that hinder the growth of fintech that must be addressed to yield maximum benefits for the peoples of ASEAN. These include upscaling human capital, enhancing broadband infrastructure at the home front, while harmonising policies to create a seamless ASEAN-wide digital economy. These were some of the observations made during the…

CIMB announced that its virtual bank that was launched earlier this year have secured 500,000 customers, approximately six months after opening its doors for business in the Philippines. The all-digital, mobile first bank is part of CIMB’s strategy in penetrating new markets, in late 2018 CIMB also launched their virtual bank in Vietnam. CIMB has also indicated that they are open to pursue Malaysia’s virtual banking license once the framework is ready. Their media statement attributed the strong uptake of their services thanks to a partnership forged between CIMB and Gcash ,an e-payments platform owned by Mynt who in turn…

GHL announced today that they have obtained their operating licences from the respective regulators in Malaysia and Thailand to commence money lending services. The licences were issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Money Lending Licence under the Moneylenders Act 1951) and Bank of Thailand (Nano Finance Licence) for GHL’s operating units in Malaysia and Thailand respectively. These licences permits money lending services to both individuals as well as businesses. This news follows the announcement of GHL’s partnership with Splitit Payments to offer installment payments solution to GHL’s online merchants. The CEO of GHL Group, Mr. Danny Leong…

CIMB Group has entered into a partnership with Axiata Digital Capital to help 700,000 SME customers in Malaysia and Indonesia to access financing solutions. This will be done through Axiata Digital Capital’s micro lending platform, Aspirasi. Victor Lee, CEO Commercial Banking, CIMB added that through this partnership they aim to fulfill SME needs based on their different business life stages. Axiata Digital Capital’s CEO, Sheyantha Abeykoon shared that the digital financing platform, Aspirasi offers a digital loan application journey with instant underwriting and fast disbursement, offering customers an unparalleled experience from any offered in the market today. The partnership will…

Grab Malaysia unveiled a usage-based motor insurance and takaful  for e-hailing driver in Malaysia, Grab Daily Insurance (GDI). Designed in partnership with 14 leading insurers and takaful operators in the country, the innovative product offers driver an accessible, yoption to add on daily e-hailing insurance coverage from as low as RM1 per day New e-hailing regulations require drivers to purchase an e-hailing insurance/takaful, an add-on to their existing motor insurance/takaful, which may cost up to RM400-500 upfront for the year. Grab aims address this upfront burden via Grab Daily Insurance GDI is the latest product by GrabInsure, Grab Financial Group’s…

TNG Digital a Malaysian e-wallet formed as a result of a joint-venture between  Touch ‘n Go and Ant Financial Group, announced today that it has appointed Ignatius Ong as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Ignatius succeeds Syahrunizam Samsudin, who will return to his role as CEO of Touch ‘n Go. A 15-year airline veteran, Ignatius comes to TNG Digital having most recently served as Group Chief Revenue Officer at Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and immediately before that as CEO of Firefly Airlines from 2011 to 2018. His prior responsibilities at the airline covered various areas of growth, revenue and sales…