Island Fintech Weekly (5 July)

Jul 05, 2021

Greetings Islanders,

I've recently started working on the first SEA-focused fintech angel network called FAO (Fintech Angel Operators) with a number of other people much smarter than me from Stripe, Grab and other places. Fintech in SEA is a unique space where network matters. Regulatory nuances, compliance and bank partnerships are not open-book access to every fintech founder, and experienced operators in the region can help bridge the gap from a knowledge and rolodex perspective. Having been in the US fintech scene for a number of years, I witnessed that a huge accelerator for its growth was the fintech community, formed by a confluence of investors, operators - even regulators! I've recently been building towards a similar ideal with creating a space where operators and angels in SEA can get together and develop frameworks for success. Check out FAO’s Tech In Asia feature here!

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

🎣 Dips

Shopee, arguably one of the biggest rivals to Grab and Goto in the region, is doubling down on food delivery services with ShopeeFood, having launched in Indonesia and most recently in Malaysia. The launch of more transaction-heavy services like ShopeeFood can be a strong factor for increasing adoption and usage of Shopee’s wallet, ShopeePay, in its local markets.
Fave has expanded into the BNPL industry, providing its users with instant access to interest-free credit to be used at over 40,000 stores as a pilot. Fave was acquired by Indian fintech tech unicorn Pine Labs in a deal valued over US$ 45 million to accelerate joint global expansion.
A migrant-worker focused remittance platform, eRemit, in Singapore is partnering with Hong Leong Assurance Singapore to provide insurance services for its (typically lower-income) customers. eRemit is underwriting the insurance on the basis of the successful remittance transfers on the platform - you can be insured as long as you've gone through their KYC and had one successful transfer. Insurance for folks like these can be very tricky to acquire in Singapore. Just goes to show how data can help improve financial access for the underserved.
MAS (Singapore’s central bank) wants your help to make CBDCs work! CBDCs, or Central Bank Digital Currency, is a question that MAS , IMF, World Bank and a number of others, want to explore more deeply in their Global CBDC Challenge. The aim seems to be to crowd-source a strategy and protocol around creating operational protocols for CBDCs for retail and commercial applications.
Singapore’s GrabPay received $55 million in additional capital from its parent company, A6 Holdings Inc, the entity under Grab Holdings Inc that houses most of the ride-hailing giant’s fintech operations.
A couple of editions ago, I wrote that the complexity and work that went into the Gojek and Tokopedia merger requires an entire article for itself - a mere dip like this won’t do it justice. This super-well researched piece by TiA does a great job of documenting everything that went down in making it happen.
Singapore ranked as the most receptive audience for banking as a service (BaaS) and open banking adoption, according to a recent Finastra report which targeted 785 professionals at global financial institutions and banks. Almost half of respondents (47%) have deployed or improved their BaaS capabilities in the last year and a similar proportion (45%) are looking to do so in the next 12 months – higher than in any other market surveyed.

🐋 Dives

Startup Idea Checklist for SEA (from Zi Shuang’s Substack)
The Fintech Players Putting Indonesia on The Map (from Tech In Asia)
The Braintrust: Ben Milne (Dwolla) on Fintech APIs and the RTP Future of Finance (Unifimoney)
Singlife’s Head of Consumer Business on Driving an Enlarged Mobile-First Model for Aviva Singlife (Hubbis)
Singapore is laying the groundwork to snatch a piece of fintech’s multi-trillion-dollar industry (KR Asia)