FinTech and banking tech news headlines from December 2020
via Startup News Asia
FinTech news headlines here were drawn from a range of online, free-to-read news platforms, each covering aspects of fintech and banking technology in December 2020.
Our fintech news summary is intended to deliver a wide-angle look at banking technology in a range of implementations and focus areas, from fully-fledged central bank digital currency initiatives to the launch of banking-related startups.
Each fintech news headline listed here links to the full news article behind it, providing you with 2 things; an at-a-glance overview of December 2020 fintech news, obviously, and one-click access to detail on a particular fintech issue or implementation.
Fintech news items featured were drawn from Startup News Asia’s daily updates, delivered on social media and mobile app.
- Australia: KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020 now available to download, providing a snapshot of innovation in the country’s financial services technology sector
- Visa Accelerator Program applications now open, seeking tech startups focused on ecosystems around fintech and digital payments
- ICYMI: 400 million Apple Pay users can now buy Bitcoin and Ethereum using Lumi Wallet, with Apple Pay dealing with AML and KYC considerations
- ICYMI: Central banks from United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia release report on ‘Project Aber’ CBDC trial
- ICYMI: Stripe unveils Stripe Treasury, partnering with banks to offer banking-as-a-service API, allowing Stripe clients to provide bank accounts to their customers
- Fintech: The a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) fintech team’s predictions for where fintech will go in 2021
- ICYMI: Nordigen fintech from Latvia launches free open banking platform, with freemium model likely to disrupt a sector still figuring out its early adoption stages
- Payments firm Stripe reportedly to boost presence in Asia after adding 200 people to its workforce in the region
- Blockchain vs clearinghouses: “…settlement processes on decentral technologies makes the settlement process more efficient since it decreases the associated transaction costs and reduces involved risks.”
- Blockchain and FinTech Competition Asia from EDGE196 applications close January 15th
- Available to download: Principles for a global central bank digital currency and a single global payment system – discussion paper
- China: “Mass adoption of the digital RMB would mark a fundamental shift away from commercial digital payment systems like WeChat Pay and Alipay to the central bank.”
- China: Online financial service providers including JD Digits, Tencent, Baidu halt deposit-taking products in anticipation of tightening regulations on fintech sector
- China: An overview of how Ping An, an insurer, became a fintech super-app, built on a 110,000-strong technology development team
- ICYMI: Visa to connect global payments network of 60M merchants to U.S. Dollar Coin digital currency, developed by Circle on the Ethereum blockchain
- India: Dep’t of Posts and India Post Payments Bank launch DakPay, providing digital financial services and assisted banking via the postal network
- India: A brief intro to Finwego, neobank aiming to be the first bank built with a focus on the private school education sector
- Indonesia: Digiasia Bios, Mastercard-backed fintech startup, to raise $20M in debt funding to focus lending support on ‘warungs’, Indonesia’s mom-and-pop corner stores
- Japan: ‘FinTech Program, Asia meets Tokyo’ now accepting applications from overseas startups, providing mentoring and connections with Japanese firms
- South Korea: CHAI payment tech startup gains $60M funding with API system allowing companies to accept payments from more than 20 systems
- South Korea: A look at the key points from a recent Bank of Korea report on contactless and digital payments
- Philippines: Boxer Manny Pacquiao to roll out PacPay and Pac tokens cryptocurrency in 2021, in part for cross-border transactions for OFWs, overseas Filipino workers
- Philippines: SquidPay secures over $4M with contactless payments
- The Philippines’ Quikz mobile remittance app launches in Singapore in partnership with Nium, expanding services to Singapore-based overseas workers
- Philippines: A brief intro to the 3 winners of the recent ARISE Startup Pitch Challenge 2020, held during Philippines Startup Week
- ICYMI: Russia’s Sber Bank partners JP Morgan to roll out its own digital currency project in 2021
- Singapore’s DBS bank launches currency and crypto exchange, allowing traders to exchange 4 currencies for 4 cryptocurrencies
- Singapore: 4 of 14 applications for digital banking licenses were accepted – and 3 of those 4 are internet companies, not financial giants
- An overview of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s regulatory sandbox, launched this year for use by domestic and international fintech firms
- Australia: Banks ordered to adopt proactive stance to cyber security, including hiring independent ‘red team’ hackers to deploy techniques to expose weaknesses
- Video intro’s to 13 of the startups that presented at Antler Australia’s recent virtual Demo Day
- Australia: A collection of the past month’s tech, startup and funding news, gathered from Startup News Asia’s daily news feeds
- ICYMI: Sweden considers introducing a digital currency, with central bank already running pilot project with Accenture Plc for blockchain-backed ‘electronic krona’
- China: Suzhou city’s CBDC trial recipients gain added spending options for ‘digital yuan’ via Meituan bike-sharing platform, Didi taxi service and Bilibili video-sharing site
- HK Monetary Authority and Digital Currency Institute of China’s central bank discussing pilot testing of e-CNY, digital renminbi, for cross-border payments
- ICYMI: Venezuela reportedly paying companies in countries including Iran and Turkey with Bitcoin to mitigate US sanctions, with gov’t also planning to boost Bitcoin usage
- ICYMI: Coinbase cryptocurrency platform files paperwork to go public as Bitcoin hits record high
- India: Reserve Bank launches digital payment security project to push regulated entities towards common control standards for channels like internet, mobile banking, card payments
- ICYMI: Libra cryptocurrency takes new name – Diem – in effort to show organizational independence from Facebook, looking for regulatory approvals
- Download: Central Bank of Sri Lanka Payments and Settlements Department’s Q2 2020 Payments Bulletin (pdf)
- ASEAN consumers and e-wallets: “…while card transactions (-0.3%) and bank transfers (-1%) remained near unchanged, e-wallet usage rose to 22% from last year’s 14%”
- Philippines: Robocash Group launches UnaPay ‘buy now, pay later’ service in the country, offering instalment payment for online and offline shoppers
- Singapore’s CardUp fintech startup partners Visa for Hong Kong launch, allowing users to make payments with credit cards where recipients don’t accept card payments
- An at-a-glance overview of the moves Visa, PayPal and Facebook’s Diem (formerly Libra) are making into cryptocurrency payments
- E-commerce Payments Trends, Malaysia: “…cash is expected to be overtaken by digital wallets by 2021…” from JP Morgan
- Vietnam’s Homebase gains funding from Singapore’s 1982 Ventures with custom co-investment concept for home buyers
- Cambodia: Smart Axiata Digital Innovation Fund backs Banhji, financial platform for MSMEs, and DRVR, fleet analytics software logistics and passenger vehicles
- “More important, Ethereum has become the most utilized blockchain protocol in the world, settling over $6 billion per day.”
- India: Investors likely to soon be required to pay taxes on returns earned from bitcoin investments, potentially as high as a 30% tax on cryptocurrency gains
- ICYMI: The official Libra White Paper v2.0
- “National Bank of Cambodia has its job cut out in solving multiple problems including low financial inclusion and countless payment app providers. Is Project Bakong the tool that fixes this?”
- China: Suzhou city gov’t to distribute 100K virtual red packets for Double Twelve shopping festival as part of digital currency trial, each containing US$31 in value
- India: WhatsApp debuts peer-to-peer payments service in partnership with State Bank of India and others, having overcome antitrust concerns
- Australian Prudential Regulation Authority new cybersecurity strategy expands to 3rd-party IT suppliers, fund managers, payments companies in bid to safeguard financial systems
Other tech news from December 2020:
• Artificial intelligence news: December 2020
• Blockchain news: December 2020
• Cryptocurrency news: December 2020
