Island Fintech Weekly (2 August)

Aug 02, 2021

Greetings Islanders,

Something that has been on my mind this past week has been the infamous AirAsia townhall video. If you’re not sure about what I’m talking about - the link is here. Tassapon Bijleveld, CEO of AirAsia Thailand, uses expletives while speaking to his staff, while other colleagues simply grinned on the split screens. AirAsia's CEO Tony Fernandes, who also happened to be on the call, issued a public apology that seemed reflexive at best - perhaps a hint at the sort of culture that the company espouses.

Workplace bullying can still happen with remote work. If you see this happening, I hope you will have the courage to 1) defend whoever is being spoken to in such a manner and 2) take the relevant steps for escalation. Ok, that's it from me. Peace ✌🏽

Note: Want to get in touch with me? Reach out to me at vinay.palathinkal@gmail.com or connect via LinkedIn.

🎣 Dips

Afterpay, the Australian BNPL platform, is being acquired by Square for a $29b deal. Square is offering a 30% premium in a share-swap deal. The deal is interesting, combining complementary consumer (Cash App) and merchant (Square, Afterpay) ecosystems - providing significant cross-sell opportunity.
Nium, a Singapore-based payments platform, raised a landmark $200m round, pushing them out as first B2B payments unicorn from Southeast Asia. Interestingly, the company is using the round to push its focus into the United States, where the company is relocating to, post-raise.
Xero has partnered with UOB Bank to offer an integrated accounting experience for SME customers. It is interesting to see UOB partnering with Xero - many neobanks such as Aspire and Finaxar in Singapore have already partnered with the accounting platform. There is a strong need from SME platforms in Singapore to enable integrated accounting solutions. Incumbent banks are now realising that this is the case.
UnionDigital in Philippines became the fourth licensed digital bank in the country after the Philippines banking regulator, BSP, gave the green light. Union Digital will be a fully virtual bank and will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Union Bank of the Philippines (UBP).
Singapore's regulator, MAS, is in final stages of reviewing cryptocurrency applications submitted for state licenses in the country. There have been 480 crypto service license applications submitted under the Payment Services Act.
The founders of Airwallex, an Australian payment service provider, are launching a $200m fund called Capital 49. The fund is focused on investing into the types of companies that supports its payments ecosystem - from e-commerce to SaaS.
DBS Bank and Temasek in Singapore are launching a $500m debt financing fund. EvolutionX Debt Capital will provide non-dilutive financing to growth stage tech companies across Asia, with a focus on China, India and South-east Asia.

🐋 Dives

The Next Generation of Fintech Infrastructure: How API Platforms are Disrupting Banking & Payments (Sebastian Garcia)
Marqeta is turning to an industry outsider to take on fintech’s challenges (Protocol)
Open Banking Will Be Good for America (Forbes)
Burn Some to Earn Some - GrabPay's Monetisation Conundrum (The Ken)
Grab Financial Group's Senior MD on Scaling a Tech Company from Singapore (Protocol)

🍹 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)