Island Fintech Weekly (11 Jul)

Jul 11, 2021

Greetings Islanders,

Hope you've had a great weekend. A lot of new subscribers lately - I'm so stoked that you've decided to come onboard and read my little newsletter! As always, if you have any suggestions, tips or content to be featured, just shoot me an email.

Personal plug - I've restarted my Twitter, and hope to share more fintech content there - do give me a follow ✅

I recently listened to a fantastic presentation on Southeast Asia fintech by Chia Jeng Yang and Sharon Lourdes Paul. The recorded version has now been shared, and at 15 minutes, it's very tractable, and I think it should be required reading or listening for anyone interested in learning more about the opportunity and challenges in the space. Check out here for the presentation and here for the recording.

Note: If you’re interested in contributing content or getting involved with Island Fintech Weekly, reach out to me! vinay.palathinkal@gmail.com.

🎣 Dips

AirAsia (Malaysia), who have been doubling down on their superapp expansion plans, are acquiring Goto's business in Thailand. This also represents a consolidation of Goto's strategy - with this deal through, they are present in ‘just’ 3 markets, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore, as opposed to Grab (8) and Shopee (6).
Bukalapak (Indonesia) have launched a new mobile banking app, leveraging their existing partnership with Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) Nexus, the bank's Banking as a Service (BaaS) platform. Bukalapak previously raised a round of funding with SCB's support, and are now in talks to go public.
CBDC (central bank digital currency) experimentation in is getting deeper - a crossover episode between Monetary Authority of Singapore and Banque de France is underway, testing the viability of an m-CBC network driven exchange of the Singapore Dollar (SGD) CBDC and €uro (EUR) CBDC.
Endowus (Singapore) raised a S$23 million round with Lightspeed and Softbank participating. While I am not a customer, I am a big fan of Endowus' push towards transparency and keeping customers in the know about 1) where their money goes and 2) what it costs to manage it. A piece penned by Endowus's founding partner, Gregory Van, was recently featured on Singapore's Business Times.
Pine Labs (India) raised a US $600 million financing round. Pine Labs is the owner of Fave, and operates what it considers to be a ‘full-stack approach to payments and merchant commerce’, and offers a Square-like POS system service as its core product.
Citi (Singapore) has appointed five Singaporeans to senior roles across Asia. According to Citi, this ‘signals (Citi's commitment to develop local talent, provide opportunities for personal and professional growth across (their) global network’. Citi is in the midst of a global refresh, led by its new CEO Jane Fraser, exiting from consumer-banking businesses in 13 countries across Asia and other regions.

🐋 Dives

Southeast Asian Tech Titans - the Culture and Capital Cycle (Square Peg Gap)
Digital currencies from central banks could change money as you know it (Raghuram Rajan)
Are Buy Now Pay Later Schemes Evil? (Fintechnews Singapore)
Drake Wants to Turn His Life Carbon Neutral With Eco-Finance Startup Aspiration (Rolling Stone)
Investing in Emerging Markets Startups (Mikal Khoso)
Robinhood IPO - S-1 Breakdown (Meritech Capital)

🏝 Twitticisms

(P.S. does anyone have SEA or Asia focused fintech Twitter accounts I should be following? The accounts I see on my feed are overwhelmingly 🇺🇸 focused)