Author: Fintech News Malaysia

Payd, a Malaysian earned wage access solution provider, announced that it has raised US$1.7 million (RM7.5 million) in a seed funding round led by IFS Capital. The round also received participation from 1982 Ventures and The Hive Southeast Asia, a recipient of the Dana Penjana Nasional programme, as well as a few angel investors. Payd said that it will use the new funds to expand its Southeast Asian operations. This includes brand building, team expansion to accelerate product development, as well as the launch of more products and services in the coming months. Founded in 2020, Payd is an earned…

Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia (ARBM) announced that it has selected Moneythor, a Singaporean digital banking solution provider, to integrate personal financial management (PFM) features into its upcoming digital bank in Malaysia. The bank said that it will deploy Moneythor’s PFM features to deliver rich in-app functionality and power highly personalised experiences for their customers. The Moneythor solution is powered by real-time data, coupled with machine learning and behavioural science techniques to provide data-driven personalisation capabilities for digital financial management. The PFM solution will complement ARBM’s plans for a full spectrum of Shariah-compliant products as part of its digital bank offering…

Credit reporting agency CTOS Digital announced in a Bursa filing last Friday that its Group CEO Dennis Martin will be retiring from his position and will serve as Vice Chairman to the board effective 1st May 2022. Dennis joined CTOS in 2017 and has served as the Group CEO for 5 years. During his tenure, he successfully oversaw the company’s listing process which saw the share prices exceeding all analyst’s expectations during its debut. CTOS has named Eric Hamburger as Dennis’ successor and will be taking on the role of Group CEO effective 1st May 2022. Earlier in March this…

Touch ‘n Go (TNG) Group today announced the launch of its upgraded card that allows users to reload from their app without any surcharges. The upgraded card also has a new minimalistic look that comes with higher encryption levels to promote better security. In addition to this, each card is also fully registered as it is attached to a Touch ‘n Go eWallet account when mobile reloads are performed. The upgraded card is available for purchase at RM10, the same price as the older version Touch ‘n Go cards and is available for purchase via the app as well as…

UOB Malaysia announced that it will appoint Ng Wei Wei as its first female Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective 1 May 2022 onwards. She will succeed Wong Kim Choong, who will relinquish the position after leading the bank since 2012. Wong will take on a new role as senior adviser and will oversee the integration of the bank’s and Citi’s retail banking business, until his planned retirement. Ng is a seasoned banker with broad experience and in-depth knowledge of the financial industry. In the earlier part of her career, from 2000 to 2006, she was in corporate banking at UOB…

Luno, a regulated digital asset exchange in Malaysia, announced that it has surpassed 10 million customers across over 40 countries, showing a growth of 35% year-on-year in its global customer base. The company said that it had gained an additional 1 million customers in just 6 months. In the last year, Luno grew its customer base in Indonesia by 83%, almost doubling its customers in the region. After hitting an all-time high market cap of US$3 trillion in November 2021, the cryptocurrency market fell to its lowest level in five months in January 2022 amidst regulation concerns and a challenging…

BigPay, a Capital A venture company and digital bank aspirant, announced that it has rolled out DuitNow offerings for its users nationwide. With this move, BigPay’s users now have access to DuitNow QR and DuitNow Transfer for all payments. In order to pay with DuitNow QR, users simply have to open the BigPay app and scan a merchant’s DuitNow QR code to complete the transaction. BigPay users with linked airasia rewards accounts will earn points for every transaction made using DuitNow QR. These points can be redeemed on flights, food delivery and rides on the airasia superapp. Meanwhile, BigPay users…

Shariah-compliant P2P financing platform microLEAP announced a strategic and multi-faceted partnership with TheLorry, a Malaysian logistics tech platform. This strategic collaboration provides TheLorry with flexible and convenient invoice financing as well as term financing options through microLEAP’s network of local investors seeking Shariah-compliant investment opportunities. The partnership comes at a time when TheLorry is looking to fulfil customer orders on behalf of blue-chip companies and local merchants operating via online platforms and local hypermarkets. The deal has a maximum cap of up to RM 500,000 per investment note over a 3-month period for invoice financing and a 12-month period for…

Malaysian fintech JurisTech announced a partnership with Mambu, a cloud-native core banking platform, with aims to create a seamless customer and user journey in the credit and financing application lifecycle. The connectivity between Mambu and JurisTech’s products allows the latter to offer a holistic credit management platform from digital onboarding, loan origination, debt collection, and artificial intelligence to the digital banking sector. JurisTech is looking to tap into Mambu’s unique ecosystem, extensive industry experience in payments processing, accounting and finance, regulatory reporting, and card issuing and processing. Additionally, JurisTech also aims to leverage Mambu’s global market presence and clientele to…

Razer Merchant Services (RMS), the B2B arm of Razer Fintech, announced the integration of Ant Group’s Alipay+ solutions for more than 60,000 online and offline merchant touchpoints across Malaysia to expand its merchant offerings. Introduced in 2020, the Alipay+ solutions are designed to make it easy for businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to accept different payment methods and conduct cost-effective digital marketing campaigns. These merchants can now process cross-border payments made by a wider range of global e-wallets and mobile bank apps. E-wallets supported by Alipay+ include Touch ‘n Go eWallet in Malaysia, Kakao Pay (Republic of Korea),…

Syariah-compliant payment gateway PayHalal is now offering merchants participation in its inaugural iBNPL facility jointly offered with buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform Atome. This Islamic BNPL programme offered by PayHalal and Atome seeks to provide merchants with sustainable income by generating traffic into their webstore and storefronts. Merchants who sign up with PayHalal can now benefit from the free, 0% interest Riba programme as well as thousands of Atome’s pre-approved consumers with a maximum RM 5,000 spending limit. Registration can be completed online in 30 minutes with immediate approval or with PayHalal’s on-ground roving team, which will be mobilised…

Touch ‘n Go (TNG) Group today announced the launch of GOpinjam, an inclusive digital personal loan that was developed in partnership with CIMB Bank. GOpinjam is available effective immediately to Touch ‘n Go eWallet users who are Malaysian citizens above 21 years old. TNG offers personal loans from as low as RM100 to a maximum of RM10,000 and potential applicants will need a minimum monthly income of RM800. According to TNG, the repayment period for these loans can range from one week to one year, with no hidden fees of early settlement charges. The credit underwriting process is built using…

Airwallex, a cross border payments company, announced the launch of its cross-border payment services in Malaysia today. The company had managed to secure a money services business license from Bank Negara Malaysia in August last year. Initially, qualified Malaysian businesses will be given access to Airwallex’s fast, transparent and cost-effective foreign exchange conversions and payouts in more than 130 countries, enabling them to grow and operate globally. Airwallex said that it will continuously extend the availability of its product offerings to more businesses over the next few months. This announcement marks Airwallex’s ongoing plans for a Southeast Asia expansion. Earlier…

Luno, a regulated digital asset exchange in Malaysia, shared that its female users have grown from 16,000 in 2020 to more than 120,000 in 2021, an increase of more than sevenfold. In addition, the transaction volume of female users has increased twelve times year-on-year (YoY) from RM170 million to over RM2 billion, indicating a positive trend of digital asset investment among women in Malaysia. The data is based on Luno’s female Malaysian user activity in 2021. On Luno, most female users in Malaysia buy cryptocurrencies for investment while the rest are for trading, sending and receiving, and payment. Most of…

The Digital Penang Fintech Hackathon, a collaborative initiative of Digital Penang with its partners Finexus and Touch ‘n Go Digital, has announced the winners for 2021. The winning team is 404 Not Found for its charity cloud e-wallet, which turns savings’ interest into donations, taking home RM20,000 API credits and RM10,000 cash. The second and third place winners are MinersTech with its crowdfunding app, and Canada Hippo with its one-stop subscription management app. A total of RM54,000 in API credits and cash was awarded to the top three teams of the hackathon who were judged based on innovation, business viability…

Malaysian equity crowdfunding platform (ECF) pitchIN announced that it has received in-principle approval for Secondary Market from the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC). The company is targeting to launch the pitchIN Secondary Market in the first half of 2022. Just yesterday the SC had also announced that pitchIN was one of the two registered Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) operators. Chan Wei Chi, who will head pitchIN’s IEO operations, said that pitchIN aims to contribute to the creation of a vibrant digital assets ecosystem in Malaysia that is open, innovative and interoperable. pitchIN added that it has been preparing for some time…

AmBank announced that it has has partnered with Bay Supply Chain Technology, a member of the CapBay group of companies and a fintech company offering a digital Supply Chain Finance (SCF) platform. The partnership aims to enable integrated digitalisation in SCF that will positively impact the supply chain management process. With SCF going digital, AmBank can now expand its market to include micro, small and medium sized enterprises along the supply chains to improve their trade activities and cash flow. This also eliminates the cumbersome physical submission of financing requests and supporting documentations. The SCF platform consolidates data produced by…

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) today announced that it has registered two Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) operators, Kapital DX Sdn Bhd and Pitch Platforms Sdn Bhd, to promote responsible innovation in the digital assets space. The registered IEO operators will provide an alternative avenue for eligible companies to raise funds via the issuance of digital tokens in Malaysia. An issuer may raise funds up to RM100 million from retail, sophisticated, as well as angel investors, subject to the investment limits provided in the SC’s Guidelines on Digital Assets. These new operators will be required to carry out the necessary assessments,…

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in financial services is all over the news, with some reports estimating it to be a US$450 billion opportunity. But what’s the real story around what AI can do? Beyond just automating certain processes, AI has the potential to improve accuracy in credit or risk decisioning workflows, encouraging financial inclusion and allowing the underbanked and unbanked access to financial services in ways that were previously unreachable. Over 3 billion people in Asia have no access to formal credit and three of the top ten ‘most unbanked’ countries in the world happen to be located in APAC (Vietnam,…

Grab Financial Group (GFG) Malaysia and SEDANIA As Salam Capital Sdn Bhd (SASC) are partnering to offer Grab Cash Financing-i, a shariah-compliant financing product, to eligible Grab drivers and delivery partners. Grab Cash Financing-i aims to provide its gig workers with convenient and secure access to financing. This financing option lowers the barriers to micro-financing which is typically inaccessible to those below a certain income level and lack a formal credit history. This solution is made possible through SASC’s GoHalal Financing Programme (GHP), which ensures the financing activities and operations are compliant with Shariah principles and practices. The GoHalal Financing…