Hong Leong Bank’s (HLB) “Can You Hack It 2022” hackathon with a focus on re-imagining banking experiences through hyper-personalisation and the metaverse has concluded. Team ‘TryHards’ came out top with their idea of making bank statements fun and personalised for customers. The winner received a cash prize of RM 10,000, potential employment and collaboration offers from HLB, as well as exposure to organisations like Cradle, MRANTI, MBAN, and MDEC. Runner-ups Team ‘Ivy’ pitched a mobile app that harnesses the power of psychology and AI to create hyper-personalised experiences that help customers achieve their micro financial goals, while Team ‘UniVRse’ went the…
Author: Fintech News Malaysia
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A vast majority of the populations in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia, Latin America, and India are at the cusp of financial inclusion, thanks to the growing availability and adoption of digital lending services. The fintech-as-a-service market is predicted to grow to around US$ 949 Billion by 2028 due to the popularity of the alternative payment solution Buy Now Pay Later in these markets. With increased acceptability for digital lending in segments that had never been a part of the financial mainstream, organizations must enhance risk decisioning while ensuring faster turnaround on credit applications. Maintaining a high rate of…
Several Malaysian banks including CIMB, Hong Leong Bank (HLB), Hong Leong Islamic Bank (HLISB), Public Bank will be able to support the use of Google Wallet from today onwards. However, not all of these banks’ debit and credit card are able to support the payment option. For example, HLB and HLISB allows both their credit and debit card users to add their cards to Google Wallet. Meanwhile, CIMB only supports this feature for its credit card users and will soon enable Islamic Mastercard credit cards on the payment platform. Additionally, Mastercard and Visa credit cardholders of HSBC and HSBC Amanah will…
Cross-border payments are complex – just how many times have you read that before? But just how complicated and costly are these challenges? Regulatory complexities Every country comes with its own set of regulations that govern financial transactions. For example, some payment destinations have no capital controls, which makes funding easier compared to those that impose additional restrictions. Government policies may shift too, forcing payment service providers to relaunch payout corridors that turned unfamiliar. Navigating regulatory differences cost a lot. Leading professional services firm Deloitte reported that costs associated with compliance have increased by 60% for financial institutions. That’s…
SME digital financing platform Funding Societies Malaysia will provide credit facilities for PROTON dealers to finance the purchase of second-hand cars for floor stocking. Dealers who wish to apply for financing may do so via Funding Societies’ online platform. Funding Societies will be able to provide financing for up to 85% of the transaction value with repayment periods of up to 90 days. With this financial facility, PROTON dealers can grow their business by raising short-term capital to manage their cash flow and even use it for new car purchases from Proton Edar as well. Currently, the company has 35…
KPJ Healthcare Berhad (KPJ Healthcare) is collaborating with Pine Labs, a merchant commerce omnichannel platform, to offer flexible payment options for its patients. This service allows payments for KPJ Healthcare’s medical services to be made at Pine Labs’ point-of-sale terminals located at the hospital’s payment counters via debit or credit card. The Pine Labs platform provides a unique option of converting the payment into a zero-interest instalment plan through its extensive network of 14 banking partners and for charges above RM500 for up to 24 months via debit or credit card. Pine Labs’ Point of Sale terminals also enable Buy…
BigPay announced that it had achieved a new milestone for its international remittance feature. The company said it had achieved RM1 billion in Gross Transaction Value (GTV) for its international remittance feature. BigPay allows users to send money to other countries bank accounts and mobile wallets. The service is available in over 50 countries and supports over 30 currencies. BigPay currently serves a total of 45 corridors, including its latest addition of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in the United Kingdom and 34 countries in Europe, including France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Spain. The company said that the achievement is a…
RHB Banking Group has appointed Ryan Teoh as its new group chief strategy and innovation officer, effective November 1. According to the bank, Teoh joined the group in November 2019 as the head of the group strategy and was appointed as the acting group chief strategy and innovation officer in June 2022. It also said that Teoh has extensive experience working in the consulting field across various projects in Southeast Asia. Before joining RHB, Teoh held various positions focusing on growth strategy, digital acceleration, business transformation, operating models, and transformation of financial services. Commenting on the appointment, managing director and…
Touch ‘n Go Group’s TNG Digital has collaborated with Ant Group’s Alipay+ to allow the Touch ‘n Go eWallet to be accepted for payments in Mainland China. The announcement, which was first made at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022, makes Touch ‘n Go eWallet the first Malaysian e-wallet with such cross-border capabilities. Apart from Mainland China, Touch ‘n Go eWallet users can also make payments wherever the Alipay+ QR code is displayed in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, United Kingdom, Italy, France, and Germany. Alipay also launched Alipay+ D-store, its digitalisation solution for the service industry, and announced that Alipay+’s merchant…
Payments company Euronet has entered a strategic collaboration with TNG Digital to expand the use of its Touch ‘n Go eWallet that serves approximately 18 million users in Malaysia. TNG Digital recently entered a partnership with Visa to develop a prepaid card solution which also leverages Euronet’s REN payments platform, and link each card to a user’s Touch ‘n Go eWallet. The solution expands the reach of the Touch ‘n Go eWallet and allows its users to make payments to more than 80 million Visa merchants globally. Designed to be cloud native, REN’s microservices based architecture uses modern design principles…
The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) announced four new digital-related initiatives to spur the growth of the capital market and address the funding needs of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Mid-Tier Companies (MTCs). The SC Chairman Dato’ Seri, Dr. Awang Adek Hussin, said it is essential to support the post-pandemic recovery journey of MSMEs and MTCs in terms of their financing needs and continued innovation and growth potential. The new digital initiatives include scaling up MSME access to financing whereby SC will open new applications for registration of new equity crowdfunding (ECF) and peer-to-peer (P2P) market operators with a…
Tune Protect Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tune Protect Group, has received conditional approval from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to participate in its Financial Technology Regulatory Sandbox. The approval allows Tune Protect to test a digital life insurance business for the Malaysian market in the sandbox for a period of 12 months from the date of meeting certain conditions set out by BNM. The sandbox environment will allow Tune Protect to innovate and offer a differentiated value proposition to the unserved and underserved communities affordable pure life and health protection. Tune Protect aims to simplify the process of buying,…
Japan-based global payments brand JCB has launched a central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project in partnership with French identity technologies company IDEMIA and Malaysian digital payments technology provder Soft Space. The project, dubbed the JCB Digital Currency or JCBDC, involves developing a CBDC payment solution and conducting pilot tests with Tokyo merchants. JCB aims to address merchant reluctance to accept CBDCs by enabling CBDC payments to be made using its existing contactless payment solutions, POS terminals and plastic card-based user interfaces. The company says that the use of such solutions could be more appealing to payees who may not…
Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) has unveiled details of Hong Kong Fintech Week 2022 (HKFW), which will take place in person and virtually from 31 October to 4 November. Themed “Pushing Boundaries, Reaping Benefits”, the seventh edition of the flagship event seeks to lead the development of the industry and deliver fintech breakthroughs in different aspects of financial services and beyond. A gathering of global leaders in innovation, technology, and finance Organised by the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) and InvestHK, and co-organised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Insurance Authority (IA), and the Securities and Futures…
Ambank’s Managing Director of Wholesale Banking, Raja Teh Maimunah will be appointed as the CEO of Islamic digital bank consortium ACS Digital Berhad. While the announcement has not been made official yet, Fintech News Malaysia has it from a credible source that she will step into her new role effective 1 December onwards. The digital bank consortium comprises AEON Credit alongside its parent company AEON Financial Service and neobank MoneyLion. It was one of the five entities that managed to snag a digital bank license from Bank Negara Malaysia in April this year. ACS Digital is set to launch its operations…
SME digital financing platform Funding Societies Malaysia announced that it has appointed Chai Kien Poon as Country Head of Malaysia. In his new role, he will be responsible for managing day-to-day operations of Funding Societies in Malaysia, as well as driving its strategic business partnerships and initiatives. Chai has been with Funding Societies for almost four years where he was heading the Strategic Projects and Operations division. Prior to that, Chai was attached to the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC), where he has experience across multiple capital market segments and led industry wide thematic reviews. Meanwhile, Wong Kah Meng, Co-founder of Funding…
The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has signed the IOSCO Asia Pacific Regional Committee’s (APRC) Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding for Supervisory Cooperation (Supervisory MMoU) at the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) annual meetings in Morocco on Monday. The SC now has a cooperative arrangement on supervisory matters with its regional regulatory counterparts including in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Thailand. According to a statement by the SC, this Supervisory MMoU establishes for the first time, a formal framework for regional supervisory cooperation among capital market regulators. The SC was also re-elected a member of the Board of IOSCO where…
Payments firm Instapay Technologies announced the launch of the Glyd Prepaid Corporate Card for small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) in partnership with Mastercard. Issued by Instapay, Glyd aims to help small businesses manage their expenses better, enabling them to save time and money. With Glyd, SMEs will receive prepaid corporate cards, either physical or virtual, for their employees along with access to its expense management portal. Businesses will be able to set their expense budgets, and define where, how, and how much each employee is authorised to spend. The software provides real-time update on spends, leading to better control and…
In 2021, over 7.2 billion transactions were made with e-payment channels in Malaysia, a 30% year-on-year increase. This makes it the largest growth spurt since 2006, according to Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC). The effects of pandemic-accelerated digitalisation appear to be long-lasting, and not just a flash in the pan: an MDEC-IDC study expects the country’s e-commerce gross transaction value (GTV) to reach US$6 billion (RM25.2 billion) in 2022, doubling from the US$3 billion in 2019. It further forecasts e-commerce GTV to total US$13 billion by 2025, with almost all transactions conducted using digital payments. Industry players have responded quickly…
The Malaysian government has set up a National Scam Response Center (NSRC) to streamline coordination between agencies for rapid response towards online financial scams. The command center is a joint effort between the National Anti-Financial Crime Center (NFCC), Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM), Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), as well as financial institutions and the telecommunications industry. To ensure effective action can be taken, victims of these scams can contact the dedicated hotlines set up by their respective banks which will be available 24/7 or contact the NCRC at 997 which will operate from 8…