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Singapore-based fintech firm Grab launched a micro-investment platform (Auto Invest) and a buy-now-pay-later payment plans for select e-commerce sites, and extended its consumer loan platform to third party providers. AutoInvest funds, which are invested in fixed-income funds, can be withdrawn any time with no penalties and can also be used to spend on Grab services or at any merchant accepting the GrabPay Card. The third party loan platform will start in Singapore before expanding to other Southeast Asia countries.

Singapore-based Grab Holdings, the ride-hailing, food-delivery and digital-wallet group that operates across much of Southeast Asia, will go public on the Nasdaq Stock Market by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) securing a $39.6 billion valuation. Grab will merge with Altimeter Growth Corp., a SPAC sponsored by California-based Altimeter Capital.

Grab announced the launch of the GrabPay Card in the Philippines, a digital-first prepaid card powered by Mastercard. Regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), GrabPay is a mobile wallet that can be used to transact within and outside the Grab app. A 24/7 fraud detection engine encrypts and protects user personal information and payment transactions. In a survey conducted by Mastercard in the Philippines in April 2020, 40% of Filipino consumers are now using contactless payments more often in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grab is in talks to go public through a merger with a SPAC that could value the Southeast Asian ride-hailing startup at as much as $40 billion, making it by far the largest such deal on record.

Singapore-based Grab, whose offerings include ride-hailing and financial services, is reportedly set for the largest merger between a private business and a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in a deal that will value the SoftBank-backed technology group at about $35 billion. It could finalize an agreement to list in New York via one of Altimeter Capital's special purpose acquisition companies as soon as this week. Other south-east Asian unicorns that plan to go public include Indonesia-based Gojek, Grab's main rival, which is in talks to merge with ecommerce company Tokopedia prior to a listing.

WhatsApp is in advanced talks with several digital payments firms including ride hailer Go-Jek, mobile payments firm DANA, backed by China's Ant Financial, and fintech startup OVO, which is owned by Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group and is also backed by ride hailing company Grab, sources said.

CoinDesk grabbed a copy of the Terms and Services that users were required to agree to follow when signing up for the China Construction Bank (CCB) DC/EP central bank digital currency wallet, before it was pulled from the bank's website. It showed that apart from DC/EP wallets within CCB's mobile app that was offered, separate hardware wallets for DC/EP may also be in the works. It would be offered in a four-tier system...

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has awarded full virtual banking licences to a Grab-Singtel consortium and tech giant Sea, and digital wholesale bank licences to Ant Group and a coalition comprising Greenland Financial Holdings Group, Linklogis Hong Kong, and Beijing Co-operative Equity Investment Fund Management. The central bank announced the digital bank framework in June 2019 with the aim of enabling non-bank players with innovative business models to offer digital banking services. https://www.mas.gov.sg/news/media-releases/2020/mas-announces-successful-applicants-of-licences-to-operate-new-digital-banks-in-singapore

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is proposing to make a special purpose national bank charter available to fintech companies that provide banking products and services. Professor Saule Omarova of Cornell Law School and several of her colleagues argue that the charters are "a dangerous power grab" based on an ambiguity in the National Banking Act of 1863. The New York Department of Financial Services, has sued the OCC to block the fintech charters; the case is on appeal.

The price of Ether (ETH) is up 266% this year - twice as much as that of bitcoin (BTC). But a lot of digital-asset investors are hedging their bets, buying tokens associated with upstart blockchains that could potentially grab market share from the Ethereum network, often referred to as a "world computer" due to its versatility and programmability. One such token is dot (DOT), of the Polkadot blockchain, whose co-founder Gavin Wood was a co-founder of Ethereum. At the heart of Polkadot is the concept of "parachains," which are blockchains that can run higher transaction throughput than Ethereum.

"At face value, it's a vote of confidence for tokens like USDC and USDP, with Binance effectively stating that the value of those tokens are reliable enough to be allowed permanent 1-to-1 redemption with its own BUSD across withdrawals and deposits. Tether's USDT, the largest stablecoin by market value, was notably left out of the party."

A Bank for International Settlements (BIS) paper assesses the interdependencies inherent in big tech business models based on publicly available information on Alibaba, Amazon, Grab, Jumia, Mercado Libre and Rakuten. Big tech interdependencies come with specific risks, in particular to operational resilience, and may require the development of specific entity-based rules for big tech operations in the financial sector. The paper outlines the regulatory implications of how big techs provide financial services and the tools financial authorities have at their disposal now to address related risks.

"This Chris Brummer article looks at regulation by enforcement, and explains that as a legal matter, regulators generally enjoy discretion as to whether to make policy through rulemaking, adjudication, or by filing a lawsuit in federal court. However, there are some exceptions to this principle, as well as some reasons to believe that new doctrinal developments hostile to agency adjudications could reduce the discretion of agencies to choose their policymaking tool, especially where their actions are understood to be naked attempts to grab turf or circumvent democratic norms embedded in the Administrative Procedure Act. In this Article, we analyze the incentives facing agencies when choosing to regulate by enforcement, consider some of the new risks, and lay out a framework for thinking about when agencies should regulate by rule, and when they should regulate by enforcement."