Fintech news headlines
November 2021 fintech news headlines spanned a range of areas and subjects, touching on crypto, privacy, central bank digital currencies and many more.
Specific fintech news headline items in November 2021 included: Microsoft’s addition of a BNPL feature to its Edge browser; finance-focused apps for teens in India; mutual fund investment tie-ins for Grab users in Indonesia; Google Pay’s addition of support for multiple languages in India; and many more.
Daily fintech headlines from across South and Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, are delivered in Startup News Asia’s social media channels and mobile app; and Asia’s broad tech news is also collected in e-newsletter digest format as an alternative.
KPMG: Venture Pulse Q4 2021 (pdf) / Global analysis of venture funding
- Valora peer-to-peer cryptocurrency app lands celebrity backing, allowing users to send and receive crypto payments via text messages without needing a bank account
- Mercedes Benz builds on in-car payments with Visa partnership, authenticating proposed payments with fingerprint scan and payment then handled via Visa Cloud Token Framework
- ASEAN Financial Innovation Network launches ChekFIN, a global registry to help financial institutions find fintech firms to work with
- Central bank digital currencies: “If any, the only achievement of ‘CBDC initiatives’ will likely be to create copies of existing digital payment solutions, just worse.”
- An intro to Stretch, early-stage US fintech focused on the formerly incarcerated, a social group dealing with many financial challenges, including securing work
- “If MiamiCoin grows and coin-denominated contracts become a part of daily city life…Miami will have to decide whether to claim not only a share of MIA’s profits, but some measure of control…”
Vietnam: Gimo – Earned Wage Access fintech
- Microsoft adds buy-now-pay-later feature to Edge web browser, partnering Zip to allow purchases to instantly be split into 4 payments across 6 weeks
- Accelerating Asia accelerator and VC for pre-Series A startups unveils its 5th cohort covering 8 industries including e-commerce, fintech, healthtech and more
- Mastercard partners Hong Kong’s Amber Group, Australia’s CoinJar and Thailand’s Bitkub with plans to launch cryptocurrency-linked payment cards in APAC
- Philippines: A brief intro to Beam & Go, giving overseas Filipino workers control over remittances, allowing them to specify how much is spent by recipients on a specific purpose
- Sustainable Fintech Demo Day 2021 from StartupBootcamp and Fintech Australia set for December 9th, showcasing 10 sustainability-focused startups
- Download: November 2021 edition of Banking Technology, from Fintech Futures, looking at the metaverse, fintech influencers and more
- Philippines: CellPoint Digital payments fintech grows partnership with Cebu Pacific airline, adding split payments, real-time currency conversion and more
Singapore Fintech Club, from Singapore Fintech Assoc’n and JP Morgan
- India: A look at the growth and success of ‘fintech for teens’, apps taking the place of traditional bank accounts
- Asia’s tech news, issue 109: Australia’s sustainable fintechs, Bengaluru Tech Summit, Taiwan’s X-Pitch 2021 winners, Indonesia’s crypto ban…
- Cambodia: A brief look back at the recent CamTech Summit, a 5-day fintech and broad tech-focused event from Cambodian Association of Finance and Technology
- China’s Tencent leads $48M round in South Africa’s Ozow, fintech connecting shoppers directly to their bank accounts, gaining 70% of all instant, 3rd-party e-payments in the nation
- Australia: Commonwealth Bank to integrate retail offers into mobile banking app signals with Little Birdie partnership, likely aiming for eventual ‘super app’ status in financial services
- Singapore: Pace buy-now-pay-later fintech firm raises $40M Series A, looking to build on existing presence across more than 3000 locations in 4 SEA nations
- Indonesia: PPRO payments infrastructure provider partners Kredivo BNPL firm to integrate split payments, instant credit and more, focusing on the underbanked and unbanked
Global Islamic Fintech Report 2021 (pdf)
- Indonesia: Bareksa investment platform gains backing from Grab, gaining access to Grab users with mutual fund investment offers and payments handled by Ovo
- Australia: Australian Securities and Investment Commission raises oversight of investment side of local cryptocurrency market with licences for crypto-asset holders
- Australia: Commonwealth Bank to become the country’s first main-street bank to offer a platform for retail customers to trade crypto, partnering NY’s Gemini Trust exchange
- FinTech Australia unveils Investor Map, featuring funding sources across venture capitalists, angel funds, corporate investors, crowdfunders and incubators
- Australia’s ValAi takes overall win at Global Open Finance Challenge with financial services focus on achieving a zero-carbon, nature-positive global economy
- Australia: Ikea rolls out Mobile Checkout, allowing customers to scan products by phone as they shop, paying at fast-track checkouts without unpacking and repacking bags
- Malaysia: A brief interview intro to MoneyMatch, working in digitally-driven cross-border trade payments and individual remittances
Central Bank Digital Currency Tracker from the Atlantic Council
- ASEAN Financial Innovation Network launches ChekFIN, a global registry to help financial institutions find fintech firms to work with
- Future of DeFi Virtual Summit set for 16th December, looking at what’s shaping up to be the next era of global finance
- Vietnam: GIMO fintech firm raises $1.9M with focus on early access to earned wages
- Visa backs Australia’s Basiq, open banking platform bridging 100 banks and 150 fintechs which provides access to account data for lending, banking, BNPL and more
- Adobe partners Mastercard, using Adobe Sign to verify ID, fill out details and sign electronic documents, with Mastercard Send delivering approved near-instant payouts
- Thailand: Siam Commercial Bank takes 51% of Bitkub, country’s biggest crypto exchange operator, for $535M
Australia’s Fintech Future / Visa (pdf)
- Visa Accelerator Program applications are now open, to January 9th 2022, seeking entrepreneurs and startups in digital payments
- FinTech Australia unveils Investor Map, featuring funding sources across venture capitalists, angel funds, corporate investors, crowdfunders and incubators
- Asia’s tech news, issue 107: Edtech in Korea and Indonesia, Australian startup awards, ASEAN fintech registry, Digital Nomad Week…
- Thailand: Central Retail Corp, the country’s biggest shopping center developer, is piloting a digital currency with employees, aiming to expand to customers and the public
- Philippines: An intro to the 10 startups presenting at the Venture Pilipinas Startup Venture Fund Pitch on November 19th, part of Philippines Startup Week
- Australia: Ikea rolls out Mobile Checkout, allowing customers to scan products by phone as they shop, paying at fast-track checkouts without unpacking and repacking bags
ASEAN and the 4th Industrial Revolution (pdf)
- Australia: An intro to HelpPay, first-of-its-kind platform allowing people to securely share bills with family and friends via app, allowing others to help with payments
- Australia: CoinSpot has grown to 2M users and to celebrate, they’re giving an Australian resident a Lamborghini
- Australia: YBF innovation and tech hub has called in administrators in bid to reboot following long-term impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns in Melbourne
- H2Oai closes $100M in funding led by Commonwealth Bank of Australia, with CBA set to explore artificial intelligence-driven products and services
- Australia: Governor of Victoria Startup Awards launches to celebrate the $10.5BN sector and showcase entrepreneurs, leaders and investors across the ecosystem
- Sustainable Fintech Demo Day 2021 from StartupBootcamp and Fintech Australia set for December 9th, showcasing 10 sustainability-focused startups
- Australia: Annie Parker, Microsoft’s head of startups, to take on exec director role of the The Greater Sydney Commission’s Tech Central innovation hub
Vietnam: HCMC Innovative Startup & Tourism Competition
- Australia: Google to invest Au$1BN in infrastructure, research and partnerships over 5 years to aid development of the country’s digital economy under Digital Future Initiative
- Visa backs Australia’s Basiq, open banking platform bridging 100 banks and 150 fintechs which provides access to account data for lending, banking, BNPL and more
- Valora peer-to-peer cryptocurrency app lands celebrity backing, allowing users to send and receive crypto payments via text messages without needing a bank account
- China: Online brokerage firms operating across borders likely next targets in tech crackdown, with gov’t mouthpiece criticizing privacy and data transfer practices
- ICYMI: DCentral Miami is set for November 30-December 1, covering all things NFT and DeFi – here’s the speaker line-up
- Singapore: Coinhako platform the first local non-bank cryptocurrency exchange to receive in-principal approval from Monetary Authority to provide digital payment token services
- Google For India 2021: Google Pay adds features to support colloquial mix of Hindi and English, spoken by approximately 350M users, widening from English-language focus
APAC Ecommerce Report 2021, from Pattern (pdf)
- El Salvador to create ‘Bitcoin City’, issuing a $1BN ‘bitcoin bond’ tokenized financial instrument and powering the city – and crypto mining – with energy from nearby volcano
- Singapore’s Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp considering establishing a cryptocurrency exchange in response to customer demand
- Asia’s tech news, issue 118: Women Startup Summit, Indonesian fintech, India & semiconductors, sports-tech in Australia…
- Online event: ‘China’s Fintech Future’ set for December 2nd, looking at the country’s central bank digital currency moves and more
- South Korea: An intro to 10 K-Startup Center startups taking steps into overseas markets in Singapore program
Wild Digital Crypto Conference / April 2022
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