island fintech oct '25 #2

sea's funding reality check, crypto-fiat bridges, indonesia's infra bet

Oct 29, 2025

greetings islanders,

hope you’re having a great week! we’re just two weeks out from singapore fintech festival 2025 (nov 12-14), which marks the event’s 10th anniversary. if you’re attending, let me know. would love to connect over coffee and talk all things payments and fintech. happy to also share that island fintech is an official media partner for sff - please use code SFFMPISLAND for 20% off delegate passes!

quick reminder: island fintech is your biweekly dose of high-signal fintech updates from across southeast asia. if you’ve got tips, insights, or want to contribute, just reply to this email. if you haven’t already done so, subscribe below:

dips 🎣

the funding squeeze is real. southeast asian fintech startups raised just $839 million in the first nine months of 2025—a 39% year-on-year drop and down 56% from 2023 levels. early and seed-stage funding took the biggest hit, falling 66% and 63% respectively. late stage firms attract the majority of venture funds today, and singapore continues to dominate, capturing 84% of all regional fintech funding.
🏝️if insight: the market’s shifting from “growth at all costs” to “show me profitability.” if you’re pre-revenue and burning cash, this is the hardest fundraising environment in years. but if you’ve got unit economics figured out, you’re suddenly the hottest deal in town. quality over quantity is back.
thunes (full disclosure: my employer) just launched instant stablecoin payouts across 130+ countries, unifying fiat and digital assets in a single api. this is a major step toward bridging traditional banking rails with crypto infrastructure for faster, cheaper cross-border transfers.
🏝️if insight: this is what the next wave of cross-border payments looks like… hybrid rails that let you move between fiat and crypto seamlessly. the winners won’t be pure crypto or pure banking - they’ll be the infrastructure players who can do both without friction.
hashkey exchange is expanding into southeast asia through a partnership with malaysia’s hata, bringing together two licensed digital asset platforms. the mou focuses on building secure frameworks for digital asset services, leveraging regulatory strengths in hong kong and malaysia.
🏝️if insight: malaysia’s betting hard on becoming a regional crypto hub, and these partnerships show the strategy is working. watch for more hong kong-sea partnerships… regulatory arbitrage between markets is the new competitive advantage.
indonesia’s digital payments continue their explosive trajectory. the market hit $94.5 billion in 2025 and is expected to double to $194 billion by 2030. cash usage has dropped from 70% to 51% since 2020, with qris now reaching over 30 million merchants. bank indonesia’s bi-fast real-time payment system now connects 135+ banks and payment providers.
🏝️if insight: qris is quietly becoming the blueprint for regional payment unification. 30 million merchants means this isn’t just e-commerce anymore. it’s street vendors, warungs, and the entire cash economy digitizing. the infrastructure opportunity here is massive.
vietnam passed its groundbreaking digital technology industry law in june 2025, effective january 2026. it’s the world’s first law of its kind, classifying ai, semiconductors, and digital assets as strategic sectors. the law introduces import-duty exemptions for r&d equipment, tax incentives up to 50%, and recognizes virtual and tokenized assets for the first time.
🏝️if insight: vietnam is quietly playing the long game while everyone’s fixated on singapore and indonesia. this law creates regulatory clarity that venture capital desperately needs. expect more institutional money flowing into vietnamese tech in 2026.
italian fintech startups are heading to singapore as part of the italian trade agency’s global startup program. nine fintech companies will spend four weeks (oct 21 - nov 14) in singapore through a partnership with plug and play apac, marking increased european interest in southeast asian expansion.
🏝️if insight: european fintechs are waking up to sea’s growth potential, but they’ll need to localise fast - what works in rome won’t work in jakarta. the real test is whether these startups can adapt to fragmented markets, different regulatory frameworks, and hyper-local payment preferences.

dives 🐋

deep dive: cb insights’ fintech 100 2025 — decoded for builders (finextra, oct 25) - how fintech shifted from flashy consumer apps to building financial infrastructure, with ai agents, stablecoin maturation, and mega-rounds dominating funding.

asia fintech and payments regulatory update - october 2025 (linklaters, oct 8) - comprehensive regulatory roundup covering hong kong’s virtual asset framework, singapore’s deepfake risks, thailand’s digital asset pilot, and indonesia’s crypto offering regulations.

southeast asia’s fintech slowdown is real — and singapore is winning the long game (asia tech daily, oct 21) - deep analysis of the 39% funding drop, singapore’s 84% market capture, and how early-stage funding collapsed while late-stage players thrive.

fintech global fs regulatory round-up - w/e 17 october 2025 (herbert smith freehills, oct 17) - global fintech regulatory developments including fsb recommendations for cryptoasset activities and service providers.

reassessing southeast asia’s growth outlook amid singapore’s mixed economic signals (ai invest, oct 12) - comprehensive economic analysis examining singapore’s q3 2.9% contraction, regional growth projections, and tech sector valuations hitting $250b.

q1 2025 southeast asia venture capital update (j.p. morgan, oct 21) - quarterly deep dive into southeast asia’s venture capital landscape highlighting regional opportunities and emerging trends.

dbs overtakes petronas to become asean’s most valuable brand in 2025 (brand finance, oct 14) - analysis revealing top 500 asean brands valued at $306.6 billion with dbs taking the crown as the region’s most valuable brand.

🎏 some tweets

thanks for reading. feedback, tips or just want to say hi? reach out!

Thanks for reading Island Fintech! This post is public so feel free to share it.

crypto chaos, ipo buzz, and southeast asia’s fintech shake-up

Vinay Palathinkal

Oct 12, 2025

hey islanders,
hello from singapore, where it feels like every week brings something seismic to asia’s fintech scene. after a (long) hiatus, island fintech is back on a biweekly cadence, aiming to make sense of what matters in southeast asian finance, with just enough context and colour to keep things punchy.

if you could do me a favour, please vote on the poll at the end of the page to let me if you’re finding this useful 🙏🏽

🐠 dips

is the crypto dream collapsing? the elephant in the room that we must start with is the most recent crypto plunge, which follows singapore’s massively well-attended token2049 crypto festival. this crash was historically large, with nearly $20 billion in leveraged positions liquidated in a single 24-hour period - over ten times the liquidations during both the 2020 covid crash ($1.2 billion) and the 2022 ftx collapse ($1.6 billion). this liquidation event set a new record in crypto history for sheer volume and number of affected traders (over 1.6 million). bitcoin prices dropped sharply but later partially recovered.
- 🏝️if insight: this meltdown serves as a reminder that speculative digital assets will always carry volatility, underscoring the critical need for reliable infrastructure and robust regulatory frameworks. rather than rattling investor confidence, southeast asia’s crypto market is staying resilient. with strong institutional interest, many see this turbulence as part of the maturation process in building a sustainable digital asset ecosystem. to me, this highlights why true infrastructure is more important than ever.
phonepe’s quiet ipo march india’s phonepe, arguably the subcontinent’s payments juggernaut, has confidentially filed for a massive ₹12,000 crore (about us$1.5 billion) ipo. in classic fintech fashion, their approach shields key details from public view until launch. still, the numbers that have leaked are sizeable: fy25 revenue soared 40% to ₹7,115 crore.
- 🏝️if insight: with walmart, tiger global, and microsoft in the cap table, this is one to watch for regional cross-pollination and capital flows
singapore’s stablecoin moment: the only singapore dollar-backed stablecoin, xsgd, just hit coinbase. straitsx, its issuer, is touting instant crypto-to-sgd transactions for everyone from tourists to big local businesses. okx pay is also piloting scan-to-pay merchant services using xsgd.
- 🏝️if insight: this isn’t just fintech tinkering - singapore’s ambition to become a leader in digital assets is getting international backing and infrastructure. distribution is the surest moat!
singapore’s going to freeze your fund transfers: from october 15, singapore is set to require banks to hold or even reject digital transfers that cross new thresholds. designed to curb scams and boost safeguards, the regulation has sparked debate over efficiency versus security
- 🏝️if insight: this is a classic singapore conundrum in keeping the market safe but nimble. time will tell, but methinks that it’s worth a shot - especially if we can prevent life savings from being lost. if over cumbersome, the restrictions can always be released.
stablecoins are going to be regulated in singapore with clarity: mas’s framework on stablecoin issuers is finally trickling into real-world application. mas’s stablecoin framework, focused on single-currency stablecoins pegged to the singapore dollar or g10 currencies, requires issuers to fully back coins with high-quality reserves, maintain minimum capital, and provide users with guaranteed redemption at par value. these clear rules aim to boost trust and safety in stablecoins issued in singapore, setting a global standard for regulated digital assets.
- 🏝️if insight: the roadmap involves new legislative tweaks coming up soon, which should cement singapore’s reputation as one of the world’s clearest regulatory environments for digital assets.
sea digital payments are still just at the tip of the spear : according to a recent 2c2p commissioned report, indonesia’s mobile wallet transaction volume jumped from us$18.27 billion in 2023 to us$25.2 billion today; vietnam saw an 88% hike in mobile payments for e-commerce.
- 🏝️if insight: makes you think - with the market penetration currently just sitting at where it’s at - there’s still so much more to be done! for some context, indonesia’s unbanked population is around 100 million people, roughly 40-50% of the population unbanked. similarly, vietnam’s unbanked or underbanked population is also sizeable, with estimates around 44% lacking access or being underbanked.
hsbc will take your tokenized deposits: hsbc rolled out a blockchain-based tokenised deposit service in singapore last week, enabling real-time, 24/7 settlement of multi-currency deposits across borders. this service addresses a key pain point for treasurers dealing with volatile fx and interest rates by offering instant liquidity management, greater transparency, and operational efficiency.
- 🏝️if insight: watch this space as both incumbents and challengers chase the joys of ledgered liquidity for their customers.

🎏 twitticisms

thanks for reading. feedback, tips or just want to say hi? reach out!

Thanks for reading Island Fintech! This post is public so feel free to share it.

MAS releases its stablecoin regulatory framework, Thai bank Kasikorn launches a billion dollar bid to buy Home Credit Vietnam, and more

Vinay Palathinkal

Aug 30, 2023

Hey Islanders,

First up, thank you for being so patient with us for the past 8 months - we last greeted y’all in December, and while life happened and we both took a break from writing for awhile, we’re back and up and running!

We’re also planning to shake things up a little here, so keep your eyes peeled for any new stuff in the future. In the meantime, please enjoy today’s edition.

P.S. We also have Instagram and Linkedin pages now, so do follow us there and reach out with thoughts anytime!

🐠 Dips

The MAS finalises its stablecoin regulatory framework, after a public consultation

The framework covers and regulates single-currency stablecoins pegged to the Singapore Dollar or any G10 currency that are issued in Singapore.
The framework lays grounds for stricter requirements for stablecoin issuers in terms of value stability, base capital maintained, redemption at par requests and disclosure of information of the stablecoin’s value.

🏝 IF Insight: Great news from Singapore and is a huge step towards embracing and building up the crypto industry here! While governments around the world are still trying to choose their stance on crypto (ps. read below for how badly the U.S. has fumbled the bag), Singapore has decided to accept that crypto is here to stay, and instead of stopping innovation in this area, chose to lay out a clear regulatory framework so that all participants can take part safely. I truly believe we are one step closer to becoming the crypto capital of the world - Joyce

Thai bank Kasikorn launches a billion dollar bid to buy Home Credit Vietnam

In an aspiration to become a top 20 bank by 2027, KBank is in talks to buy Home Credit Vietnam for $1 billion

🏝 IF Insight: If successful, this deal would contribute to the ongoing trend of consolidation in Asia's financial sector and mark one of the largest mergers and acquisitions in Vietnam's financial industry in 2023. It is clear that KBank’s desire to buy a loanbook in Vietnam shows that there’s saturation in a more mature market like Thailand where Bangkok Bank has a clear lead, with KBank in the second spot. Interestingly, in March, Grab and a number of Japanese banks were also interested in acquiring Home Credit’s entire SEA book - it’s interesting that they haven’t followed through just yet - allowing KBank to take a more focused and strategic investment opportunity. For me personally, it also reflects the growing “Southeast-ification” of SEA financial services - remember Citibank exiting their corporate banking presence in the region and selling to regional banks like OCBC? Truly a shifting of the tides - I might call it the share-buyback equivalent of a successful FS industry - Vinay

Paypal launches USD stablecoin, issued by Paxos

Paypal USD stablecoin is fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. treasuries and similar cash equivalents, and can be redeemed 1:1 for U.S. dollars.
The stablecoin is an ERC-20 token, meaning it can be used not only within the PayPal ecosystem, but also external exchanges and wallets
Currently, only PayPal customers in the United States are able to purchase PayPal USD.

🏝 IF Insight: Paypal’s move comes at a time where the U.S. has taken a hostile stance towards crypto entities operating in the country, most famously the Coinbase and Binance SEC cases. Paypal USD would enable cheaper cross-border costs, and also open the platform to interoperability with crypto exchanges, marking Paypal’s first big leap into the world of decentralisation and web3 - Joyce

Grayscale wins court battle against the SEC

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals delivered a crushing interpretation of the SEC’s logic for denying an ETF, finding the agency acted “capriciously” and “arbitrarily.”
This means that the SEC would have to review Grayscale’s previously rejected ETF application.

🏝 IF Insight: Move aside Gary Gensler, you don’t always have the final say. The court ruled in favor of Grayscale, showing us that the SEC is not the ultimate arbiter of crypto. Bitcoin had a large green candle and jumped 5% upon news of the court’s ruling, and crypto-related stocks had a field day as well. Why are we so concerned about the potential of a Bitcoin ETF? Are Wall Street and Main Street even supposed to be together? In my opinion, the launch of an ETF would unlock massive amounts of liquidity sitting at the sidelines right now, waiting for a regulated product to be launched - something that’s deemed safe. If we’re truly in it for mass adoption, maybe it’s time to actually walk the talk. - Joyce

Coinbase’s Layer 2 network Base goes live on mainnet after initial testnet frenzy

Base is an Ethereum L2 network incubated in Coinbase. Its testnet launched in February this year.
Coinbase launched a campaign called Onchain Summer in conjunction with its mainnet launch, where big brands collaborate with Coinbase to launch their NFT collections and run on-chain events on Base.
The mainnet launched with $142M TVL, surging another 10.9% to $240M TVL in just 7 days.

🏝 IF Insight: A few weeks before the Base mainnet launch, degens went crazy on the chain speculating on its first memecoin, Bald (yes, it’s a play on Brian Armstrong’s hair, or lack thereof). Many memecoins and DEXs followed soon after, with a majority of them ending up as rugs. Users started complaining that the chain was like a honeypot; you could only bridge in, not out. Bald itself rugged for a hot minute before the deployer was pressured to add liquidity back in and the speculating continued. In this cruel bear market the degens have truly had fun with this one. We’ll see what holds in store for Base, as its TVL has now surpassed Cardano, crypto normies’ beloved chain - Joyce

🐋 Dives

Friend.tech - the new OnlyFans for crypto bros?

Joyce Lee

How much do you think your friends are worth?

Oof, hard hitting question. But what if you could trade the value of your friends… in public…?

A few weeks ago, CT (crypto twitter) started circulating invite codes for a new mysterious socialfi app called friend.tech - it calls itself the marketplace for your friends. Very apt way to put it.

You basically sign up with your Twitter account and your friends can buy and sell ‘shares’ (now called keys) of yourself. What made it interesting was the fact that friend.tech is mobile first, instead of being an annoyingly web-only product that we are all accustomed to in web3.

Within 24 hours of launch, trading volume surpassed 4,400 ETH. Bots started sniping up shares of newly joined accounts to flip - it soon became the playground for MEV bots sniping each others’ shares. But more interestingly, an unexpected group of people started joining the platform - OnlyFans creators.

And it makes sense. Shareholders of an account get to be in an exclusive group chat with the account owner - many CT influencoooors have taken this opportunity to shill their bags in the group chat - while OnlyFans creators have shared photos to their shareholders (and also probably at the expense of some crazy simp messages).

Looking at the friend.tech Dune dashboard, we see that activity on the protocol has fallen off sharply, in both buy and sell transactions. For awhile in the first two weeks it generated even more fees than Uniswap and Lido, two of the biggest protocols on Ethereum.

Such is the fate of a crypto app nowadays - the attention span in the space is getting shorter and shorter, as evident in the duration of rugs happening everyday. The friend.tech team did a great job of taking a stab at launching a great socialfi app, but time will tell if it can sustain the initial hype. Or will we all go back to good ol’ Uniswap to speculate on memecoins and OnlyFans to simp for girls?

🍹 Twitticisms

https://twitter.com/modestproposal1/status/1695177654822191184?s=20

https://twitter.com/NorthRockLP/status/1695172393747239118?s=20

https://twitter.com/fintechjunkie/status/1696328109111288129?s=20

Island Fintech (December 2022)

East Ventures to invest $500k in laid-off tech talent, New Amex Innovation Center set up in Singapore, Finaccel appoints Slack's former CFO on its Board

Vinay Palathinkal

Dec 23, 2022

Hey Islanders,

I’ve been trying to be thoughtful about the small role Island Fintech can play in this time of fundraising doom and gloom. Could we do more to put a spotlight on the progress we are still making, despite the headwinds? ☀️

Note - If you are looking to raise early stage funding (seed to A), we may be able to help. Reach out via LinkedIn with a quick note on what you’re building, and the help you need. Also, if you’re on the lookout for a new gig, I want to help. Check out wise.jobs and drop me a note if you find something interesting.

🐠 Dips

1. Hackathon heroes: East Ventures to invest $500k in laid-off tech talent

Indonesian venture capital firm East Ventures will invest $500,000 in the winners of its hackathon aimed at laid-off tech talent.
The hackathon, which will be held in January, is open to Indonesian residents who have been laid off or furloughed due to COVID-19.
The winning team will receive a cash prize and the opportunity to work with East Ventures to develop their idea into a full-fledged startup.

🏝 IF Insight: This hackathon is a great opportunity for laid-off tech professionals in Indonesia to turn their skills and ideas into a new business venture. It's awesome to see a venture capital firm like East Ventures recognising the challenges startup folks face, and providing support to help them get back on their feet.

2. New Amex Innovation Center set up in lion city

American Express (Amex) has established an innovation center in Singapore, with a focus on fintech and big data.
The center will also host Amex's Singapore Data Science team and its Singapore Innovation Lab, which aims to "co-create and pilot" new products and services with fintech partners.
Amex aims to leverage Singapore's strong fintech ecosystem and talent pool to drive innovation in the Asia Pacific region.

🏝 IF insight: Singapore's fintech ecosystem continues to attract major players like Amex, and highlights the huge potential for collaboration and partnerships with local fintech firms in the region.

3. Amber raises $300m from Temasek and acquires Sparrow

Singapore-based cryptocurrency firm Amber has raised $300 million in Series C funding.
The funding round was led by Temasek, a Singapore-based investment firm, with participation from other investors. Amber plans to use the funding to expand its business and further develop its platform.
Amber has also acquired Sparrow, a Singaporean cryptocurrency exchange, and laid off a significant portion of its workforce

🏝 IF insight: This move shows the continued interest and investment in the cryptocurrency space, even amid challenges such as layoffs and acquisitions. It will be interesting to see how Amber utilizes the funding to grow and differentiate itself in a competitive market.

5. Binance increases stake in Tokocrypto, laying off 58% of workforce

Binance, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, has increased its stake in Indonesian unit Tokocrypto. As part of the deal, Binance will lay off 58% of Tokocrypto's workforce.
The move is part of Binance's efforts to expand its presence in the Indonesian market.

🏝 IF insight: It's not uncommon for acquisitions to result in layoffs, as companies look to streamline their operations and eliminate duplication of roles. In this case, Binance's decision to lay off a significant portion of Tokocrypto's workforce may be an indication of the company's confidence in its own capabilities and its strategy for entering the Indonesian market.

6. Finaccel boosts its board with Slack's former CFO ahead of IPO plans

Indonesian fintech company, Finaccel, has appointed Allen Shim, Slack's former CFO, to its board. This appointment comes as Finaccel is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering (IPO).
Finaccel provides online lending services in Southeast Asia and has raised over $150 million in funding.

🏝 IF Insight: It's always good to see fintechs expanding their leadership teams as they prepare for future growth, and the appointment of an experienced CFO like Allen Shim could certainly help Finaccel as it looks to go public in the future. It also highlights the attractiveness of the Southeast Asian fintech market to experienced executives.

7. ZA Bank and Wise team up for online money transfers in HK

Hong Kong-based virtual lender, ZA Bank, has announced a partnership with online money transfer platform, Wise, to offer international money transfers to its customers.
They will be able to send money from Hong Kong to 10 countries and territories in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
The partnership will also enable Wise to expand its services to Hong Kong, which is one of the world's largest remittance corridors.

🏝 IF insight: Partnerships between fintechs are becoming more common, especially when one brings something special to the table. With ZA Bank, it is the class leading virtual banking experience, and with Wise, it the speed and efficiency of its cross border payments. Together, there’s a better single experience in the ZA App - which means happier Hong Kong customers!

Share Island Fintech

🐋 Dives

The ‘jockeys’ traversing Indonesia’s fintech wilderness - Putra Musika
A Fintech good news: story Wise is hiring! What if Twitter did Payments? SBF Interview & BlockFi bankruptcy - Simon Taylor
Google’s Browser Tokens Payments - Tom Noyes
The internet economy is everywhere - Stripe

🍹 Twitticisms

(P.S. Again, if anyone has SEA or Asia focused fintech Twitter accounts I should be following, tweet me. The accounts I see on my feed are overwhelmingly 🇺🇸 focused)

Rex Salisbury @rexsalisbury

end of year means...2023 predictions everywhere! 7 fintech predictions from - @Jillwillnyc at Cowboy - @mbatny at Inspired - @jmover at Lightspeed - me - Kapor Capital - eToro CEO - @TXZhuo at Fika

axios.comWhat 2023 will bring for fintechsVCs and executives predict big fish will be on the hunt for small.

Matt Turck @mattturck

Seed investor who hasn’t spoken to the company in 7 years, on IPO day

Sheel Mohnot @pitdesi

One of the best recent innovations (up there with Apple’s auto-filling SMS confirmations) is being able to scan a QR code and instantly pay via Apple Pay. Total time to pay a bill reduced from several minutes (incl back and forth with server & CC) to 3 seconds.

Share Island Fintech Weekly

The opinions and views posted above are solely personal and are not indicative of the views of the authors’ employers.

Island Fintech - September 2022

Vinay Palathinkal

Sep 30, 2022

Hey Islanders,

Hope your month went well?

After a smashing first edition, we are organising Round 2 of SEA Fintech Social next week in Singapore 🌏

We’d love to see you (and also get feedback on IFW) - sign up at seafintechsocial.com

Note - If you are looking to raise early stage funding (seed to A), we may be able to help. Reach out via LinkedIn with a quick note on what you’re building, and the help you need.

🐠 Dips

1. Biden wants to build his own NFTs.. and regulate yours

On the 16th of September, The White House released a framework on regulating crypto. The POTUS issued an executive order in March, outlining the ‘first whole-of-government approach to addressing the risks and harnessing the potential benefits of digital assets and their underlying technology.’ The 7 sections in the fact sheet are: (1) Protecting Consumers, Investors, and Businesses; (2) Promoting Access to Safe, Affordable Financial Services; (3) Fostering Financial Stability; (4) Advancing Responsible Innovation; (5) Reinforcing Our Global Financial Leadership and Competitiveness; (6) Fighting Illicit Finance and (7) Exploring a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Perhaps the most interesting part of this framework is the country’s intention to build its own CBDC - many countries have toyed with this idea, but widespread adoption still remains to be seen.

2. Do Kwon, now a wanted man, is likely to be in Singapore

When news of the Terra collapse broke out, disgruntled $LUNA holders and bystanders called for the arrest of Do Kwon, with South Korea launching an investigation into Terraform Labs in May, the developer of the Terra blockchain network and Anchor. This week, it was reported that a South Korean court has issued an arrest warrant against Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs. This news comes just a few weeks after this interview of him was released - where he has repeatedly maintained that he will provide full cooperation with the relevant authorities 👀. Do Kwon currently resides in Singapore, but reports state that his employment pass (EP) is set to expire on 7 December.

3. Binance ups the ante in building a lucrative USD stablecoin

Binance announced on 5 September that it would introduce an auto-conversion scheme to BUSD for users' existing balances and new deposits of USDC, USDP and TUSD stablecoins at a 1:1 ratio. This is an interesting move to make to promote usage of BUSD - Binance CEO CZ tweeted that the move merges all liquidity into only one pair, therefore providing users with the best price and lowest slippage.

🐋 Dives

Digital bank offers rice 🍚 to sign up… what the Trust is going on?

Trust Bank, the new digital bank formed by Standard Chartered and NTUC (Singapore national labour movement) launched earlier this month. Ten days following its 1 September 2022 opening, Trust Bank says it hit 100,000 clients. Users between the ages of 18 and over 90 signed up across a wide spectrum of demographics.

Trust says that this is because they did a great job of designing the product with the Singaporean in mind, and that it’s a testament to what they’ve built. They didn’t mention the expensive freebies you’ll get for signing up. From what it seems like, the role these freebies play seems to have been vastly underplayed. We all know that this is not true - Singaporeans are true freebie enthusiasts. When one gets a chance to get a sack of 1kg rice to sign up, how can you refuse? Think of all the meals that will supply for the week - fried rice, yellow rice, curry (and) rice…

I’d be interested to know how many monthly active users (MAUs) they have acquired. I’m willing to bet that less than 5% of the new 100k cohort of customers would have signed up to actually use the product. Sorry guys. I’m not sold on what they claim is a unique spin on family personal accident insurance, a savings account, and credit card services. It’s not like we don’t have enough of these features already - but I’m interested to see how they’ll add a fresh twist to these battle-worn products.

A hint of where this might come into play is how Trust plugs itself into the FairPrice Group supermarket ecosystems, such as with the Link Rewards programme. I’m cautiously pessimistic - I know that these points don’t mean much to the MPD club, but equally, I am aware that there is a cohort of Singaporean consumers who may greatly appreciate the additional access and familiarity within the FairPrice ecosystem.

We also saw a smaller announcement from Trust’s friend at GXS (Singtel and Grab), curiously, on September 6th. They claimed that they’ve launched a savings account product. Interestingly - this came without an actual product (which was a little disappointing). GXS brands itself as a true Gen-Z first bank, akin to Current in the US. It’s interesting to see two differing takes at digital banking in Singapore, which I do hope will bring competition and (hopefully) innovation into the space.

We’ve merged - here’s what the Ethereum Merge was really all about.

Merging… merge… merged!

The MERGE has been the talk of crypto town for months - and it finally happened on September 15. There were online and offline watch parties organised by local Eth communities all over the world (I mean… how do you actually watch code being shipped?).

But amidst all the buzz about the technicality of it, and how the merge would affect the ether price action, a question that stayed on may people’s minds was this - what actually is the merge, and why do we need it? Why should I care?

Before the merge, Ethereum was a proof-of-work chain, and now with the merge, it has transitioned to become a proof-of-stake chain. This development is important - to all the skeptics out there criticising blockchains for being energy inefficient, the merge has eliminated the need for mining, and instead now relies on staked ether to secure the network.

What exactly are we merging? Short answer: the Ethereum mainnet and the Beacon Chain. Long answer: the Ethereum chain (Mainnet) has been secured using the proof-of-work consensus mechanism since the beginning, with an aim to eventually transition into a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. In 2020, the Ethereum developers launched Beacon Chain, a separate blockchain to Mainnet running in parallel.

However, none of the transactions on Mainnet were running on Beacon yet - after the Merge, the Beacon Chain is now officially where blocks are produced, effectively transitioning Ethereum from a proof-of-work chain to a proof-of-stake chain.

Energy consumption has dropped 99.5% since the Merge, and an estimate says it is similar to Finland shutting down its power grid 😳.

If you are reading this and you’re panicking about your ETH held in your wallets, fret not - your ETH is still ETH, and there is no need for a merge or migration to a new coin from your side.

🍹 Twitticisms

(P.S. Again, if anyone has SEA or Asia focused fintech Twitter accounts I should be following, tweet me. The accounts I see on my feed are overwhelmingly 🇺🇸 focused)