Active support and initiatives by financial regulators such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Bank Negara Malaysia and Bank Indonesia has enabled the Asia-Pacific Fintech ecosystem to grow significantly in 2017. New innovations are expected to radically transform the way consumers shop, pay perform banking transactions and purchase insurance. The wave of new Fintech technologies is also changing customer behaviour and interactions today. Frost & Sullivan presented its annual Fintech Outlook at The Swissôtel The Stamford in Singapore on 8 February. The event was attended by over 70 senior management and C-suite executives, marking the start of an exciting year ahead for the…

Funding Societies and MoneyMatch, two local FinTech startups, announced an official strategic partnership to broaden access to alternative financial services for Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Funding Societies, Malaysia’s market leader (P2P) financing platform, will support efforts to build awareness for MoneyMatch, a cross border money transfer platform approved by Bank Negara Malaysia. In turn, Money Match will refer clients in need of business financing to Funding Societies. The arrangement is subject to SME customers’ consent. The Funding Societies and MoneyMatch partnership aims to provide businesses, particularly SMEs, with a wider range of options when searching for quality business…

Earlier in January Malaysian tax officials the Inland Revenue Board froze the bank account of popular cryptocurrency exchange, Luno. The account was frozen pending an investigation relating to tax matters. Luno users were still able to trade cryptocurrencies but were unable to convert their ETHs and BTCs into Ringgit Malaysia. This led to many Luno users cashing out their cryptocurrencies via other exchanges like Remitano despite suffering losses due price differences between the platforms and exchange fees. According to a statement issued by Luno, the Inland Revenue Board has agreed to unfreeze Luno’s bank account while it completes the investigation.…

A lack of fundamental valuation and the due diligence process by potential investors is leading to extreme volatility of the initial coin offering (ICO) market, according to new research published by EY. The research also found that in some cases ICO investors are contributing capital at an average rate of over US$300,000 per second. The EY research, which studied 372 ICOs around the world, also found that the offerings raised US$3.7b in funds, twice the volume of VC investments in blockchain projects. Furthermore, the US is leading the race with the highest volume of ICOs originating from the country (over…

In a joint-statement issued by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) today, the regulators stated that Initial Coin Offering (ICO) schemes may fall under the jurisdiction of the regulators. Both the regulators warned ICO issuers that carrying out regulated activities without prior approval from the authorities is considered an offense. The activities include but is not limited to; fund-raising, fund management, capital market products, deposit taking, foreign exchange administration, remittances and the exchange of digital token for payments. This statement follows Securities Commission Malaysia’s recent move to issue a cease and desist to CopyCashCoin. Bank Negara Malaysia…

As the digital wallet war heats up in Malaysia, a new player, Irispay throws its hat into the ring with their fully cashless concept store in Subang Jaya, seemingly as a push to promote usage for their digital wallet. Irispay claims to be Malaysia’s first fully cashless unmanned convenience store which operates 24 hours with ambitions to launch 250 stores by 2018. Their concept store largely consists of vending machines that sells a variety of products ranging from snacks, beverages and the standard range of items that you’ll find in a regular convenience store, upon selecting the desired item, customers…

Following our previous article highlighting 12 of the hottest fintech startups in Malaysia, we thought it’d be appropriate to come up with a “Fintech Influencers Malaysia” list to highlight some of the movers and shakers within the fintech space in Malaysia. This “Fintech Influencers Malaysia” list is gathered through a combination of public votes and the opinions of our editors on who we believe are heavily influential in the fintech landscape in Malaysia. Please note that list is in alphabetical order and does not indicate rank. Aznan Abdul Aziz Aznan is the head of the Financial Technology Enabler Group (FTEG)…

HelloGold, a Malaysian based fintech firm that blends gold trading with blockchain technologies was announced as the winner of the the Critics’ Choice Most Innovative Islamic Retail Product Award. Organised by the UK-based financial intelligence house, Cambridge IF Analytica, the award recognised the platform’s features, which include being the world’s first Shariah-compliant certified online digital gold platform. Robin Lee, CEO, commented, “HelloGold was created to make gold and other sophisticated financial products affordable and available to everyone. We are proud that our achievements are being recognised. But, this is just the beginning – in the last two months, the HelloGold…

A study published by Bank Negara Malaysia in September explores the implications of a Bank Negara Malaysia cryptocurrency or as the report calls it; a central bank backed digital currency. A central bank digital currency (CBDC), if introduced, is unlikely to replace cash transactions any time soon. Instead, it should be a complement to cash and bank deposit. According to the study, the key innovation with CBDC is the ability for individuals and firms to hold direct accounts with the central banks and to transact directly with one another using the digital currency as a legal tender. “This has…

The SuperCharger FinTech Accelerator programme kicked off its 12-week programme today by introducing 10 international start-ups as the finalists for this platform. The programme comes as a partnership between leading financial institutions, Standard Chartered Bank and Allianz Malaysia, as well as strategic partner Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC). More than 100 early-stage and late-stage scale-ups from 30 countries submitted applications for the programme. Their diverse businesses covered sub-sectors, such as insurance technology (InsurTech), regulatory technology (RegTech), payments, wealth management, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain, all of which represent some of the world’s most cutting-edge solutions. The 10 finalists for SuperCharger…

RHB Bank Berhad (“RHB”)—Malaysia’s fourth largest fully integrated financial services group—in collaboration with RinggitPlus—Malaysia’s leading comparison website for financial products—today introduced ‘ChatBot’, the first real-time messenger-style platform in Southeast Asia to facilitate personal loan applications. Consumers can now apply for their personal loan at any time of the day via ChatBot on RinggitPlus.com, and obtain the results for eligibility within a day via Short Messaging System (SMS). ChatBot is a platform that enables consumers to apply for RHB Easy-Pinjaman Ekspres via RinggitPlus.com, a financial comparison website. This platform auto populates information provided by consumers and combined with the approval process, reduces application time. “We…

Fundaztic.com made its debut on the peer-to-peer (P2P) financing platform  with a low entry barrier investment of RM50 (12USD), and is now expecting to draw investors to fund more than 500 micro and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and startups within the first year of operations to reach a funding goal of RM40 million. Fundaztic.com went ‘live’ exactly two months ago on July 7th 2017, by hosting five investment notes for SMEs and startups with total funding amounting RM530,000. The first issuer hosted, reached its funding target of RM20,000 through investments from a total of 37 investors within the first four…

IDC Financial Insights unveiled a list of 10 fast growing fintech in Malaysia, part of the broader FinTech 101 list for Asia/Pacific, at the FinTech Innovation Summit 2017 held at InterContinental, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “IDC’s FinTech Fast 101” refers to the fast-growing fintech players in Asia/Pacific based on extensive on-ground analysis of the dominant fintech players in the region. 10 Fast Growing Fintech in Malaysia AppPay gives merchants the ability to reward loyal customers and customers to feel more connected with merchants. iMoney.my is a financial comparison website that caters primarily to the Malaysian market. It lets…

During the launch of the 9th BankTech Asia at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, iPayLinks’ SEA Regional Head, Tang Wai Zhuan announced the group’s strategic decision to expand into the Southeast Asia’s market, with Malaysia being the maiden market and ASEAN headquarter. “For the next five years, Southeast Asia is our key focus and we will focus on Malaysia’s market before expanding to other Southeast Asia countries like Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.” said Tang in his opening speech during the launch of the 9th BankTech Asia. He added, “We’re committed to share mature commercialization strategies with Malaysian Financial Institutions, based on…

In a room of over 200 senior level bankers, Deputy Finance Minister I, YB Dato’ Wira Othman Aziz made a call to Malaysian banks during his opening speech at the 9th BankTech Asia Conference & Exhibition to disrupt themselves before others do it for them. Banks are increasingly facing pressures on their revenues, largely driven by shifting consumer demands, the rise of fintech, and foreign banks getting full licenses in Malaysia under the Asean Banking Integration Framework. In response to these pressures YB Dato’ Wira Othman Aziz said “The new reality in banking is disruption.” He then added, “I call…

MyCash Online, a fintech startup that is providing online services to the unbanked has raised RM1.3M  (300k USD) in 24 hours in their equity crowdfunding campaign on pitchIN. Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd (Cradle) led the funding round through their co-investment exercise along with a Hong Kong based co-investor. The MyCash Online equity crowdfunding (ECF) campaign went live on 1st June 2017 and was fully taken up in 24 hours. Cradle Fund and co-investor JC Management took up RM1.2M while other investors snapped up the remaining RM100K. MyCash Online operates a platform that offers online purchasing services to foreign workers. Users…

Fintech has become a hot topic in Malaysia, especially as the sector paves the way forward for innovations in financial services. The government has committed to provide clear guidance and regulation to new, innovative products and business models entering the financial industry. Last year, the central bank issued the Financial Technology Sandbox Framework and in April 2016 the Security Commission Malaysia introduced a regulatory framework to facilitate peer-to-peer financing. Fintech in Malaysia is growing rapidly and some events are taking place this year to educate the public and the financial industry on the potential and opportunities that fintech brings. Today, we…

Southeast Asian startup MyCash Online is an online marketplace designed for migrant workers in Malaysia and Singapore. It provides easy, secure and convenient services to the underbanked. MyCash Online offers an e-wallet service that allows users to reload phone credit, pay bills, buy bus tickets, and more. Launched in 2016, the platform quickly gained international recognition, winning the first place at the Seedstars World startup competition last year. MyCash Online was also the winner of the Kuala Lumpur semi-finals of the Fintech Finals 2017. The idea behind MyCash Online emerged following the observation that Malaysia was lacking services especially dedicated…

Banks in Malaysia are pushing fintech development as they seek to harness innovation and technology to improve the financial services. The trend is largely led by the Malaysian central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), which has been deploying efforts to modernize the domestic banking industry. In particular, the central bank’s Financial Technology Enabler Group (FTEG) was launched in June 2016 to formulate and enhance regulatory policies to facilitate the adoption of technological innovations in the Malaysian financial services industry. The FTEG is part of BNM’s commitment to support innovations that will improve the quality, efficiency and accessibility of financial services…

GoBear Malaysia is first among FinTech companies to receive its stamp of approval to be a part of the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Financial Technology Sandbox Framework. As Malaysia’s first and only unbiased meta-search engine for insurance and all things financial, GoBear Malaysia can now offer a full range of insurance products to consumers, starting travel insurance. “GoBear aspires to be the key enabler and one-stop solution provider for users to compare the best financial products available in Malaysia. Being a part of this Sandbox Framework means GoBear works closely with Bank Negara Malaysia in ensuring that consumers get…