Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

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.

"Central banks across the world have started exploring Central Bank Digital Currency ("CBDC"). In a recent survey by the Bank of International Settlements[1], 80% of the 66 banks surveyed were engaged in research and pilot projects related to CBDC, including Canada,[2] USA[3] and Singapore[4]. In fact, as of May, 2020 China has started testing its digital Yuan (Digital Currency Electronic Payment)[5] in four of its states as a part of its attempts to achieve tech-supremacy. Before we dive any deeper, let's first understand what a CBDC is."

The ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN), a not-for-profit entity jointly formed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the ASEAN Bankers Association, has partnered with R3 to enable banks and FinTechs to build and test central bank digital currency (CBDC) applications. R3 Sandbox for Digital Currencies is underpinned by Corda, and provides an environment for central banks, commercial banks, exchanges, payment providers, FinTechs and more to collaborate and evaluate CBDC use cases, as well as to learn, transact, and test roll-out strategies. https://www.r3.com/digital-currency-sandbox/

"Singpass is every Singapore resident's trusted digital identity, as well as a platform that bridges access to over 340 government agencies and private sector services. From checking your CPF, to renewing insurance policies, and signing digitally on documents, we have developed a suite of services and features to bring convenience to the everyday lives of citizens."

The Monetary Authority of Singapore launched the Global CBDC Challenge, to seek innovative retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) solutions to enhance payment efficiencies and promote financial inclusion. Partners include the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Firms around the world are invited to submit innovative solutions that can address 12 problem statements centred on the CBDC instrument, distribution; and infrastructure.

Google, Temasek and Bain & Company released the e-Conomy Southeast Asia report for 2019, highlighting the most significant industry trends observed in 2019 and analysing the current and future potential of the Southeast Asian Internet economy across its six largest markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).

Google, Temasek and Bain & Company released their e-Conomy Southeast Asia report for 2019, highlighting the most significant industry trends observed in 2019 and analysing the current and future potential of the Southeast Asian Internet economy across its six largest markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has partnered with JP Morgan Chase and state-owned investment firm Temasek to build a blockchain-based prototype multi-currency payments network. This a part of the existing Project Ubin and will be developed as its fifth phase allowing other blockchains to connect and integrate seamlessly. The platform will also offer features including delivery-versus-payment settlement with private exchanges, conditional payments and escrow for trade, as well as payment commitments for trade finance.

Bitcoin futures market Bakkt intends to expand from its current physically-settled offerings to cash-settled futures before 2020.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore is working with financial industry partners to create a framework for financial institutions to promote the responsible adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore plans to bring crypto-asset futures traded on approved exchanges under its regulation in response to interest from international institutional investors.

"etwork infrastructure to facilitate the secure availability of funds in real-time*. With Mastercard Send, PayPal users can transfer their account balances to eligible Mastercard cards seamlessly and conveniently, typically within seconds.

A drove of virtual banks is preparing to launch across Asia - Singapore plans to award up to five new licences by the middle of next year. And established lenders want to exploit their potential as a test bed for their own risk management practices - from credit risk management to fraud monitoring capabilities.

The Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data and Singaporean Personal Data Protection Commission has signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the pair cooperate on protecting personal data

The Singapore-headquartered digital asset exchange KuCoin detected large withdrawals of bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) tokens to an unknown wallet beginning at 19:05 UTC time on September 25. One or more hackers obtained the private keys to the exchange's hot wallets. The address received transactions of 11,484 Ether, worth roughly $4 million, plus $146 million in transactions of other tokens. Many are little-known, such as Gladius, Chroma, Ocean Token, and Hawala, but there were also Maker, OMG, and YFI tokens in the mix. KuCoin transferred what was left in them to new hot wallets, abandoned the old ones and froze customer deposits and withdrawals. About $150 million worth of tokens were been moved to a different address.

The Singapore-headquartered digital asset exchange KuCoin detected large withdrawals of bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) tokens to an unknown wallet beginning at 19:05 UTC time on September 25. One or more hackers obtained the private keys to the exchange's hot wallets. About $203 million worth of tokens were been moved to a different address. KuCoin transferred what was left in them to new hot wallets, abandoned the old ones and froze customer deposits and withdrawals. Also cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchain projects froze about $130 million of the stolen assets to minimize the damage.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Temasek today jointly released a report to mark the successful conclusion of the fifth and final phase of Project Ubin. The report provides technical insights into the blockchain-based multi-currency payments network prototype that was built and describes how the network could benefit the financial industry and blockchain ecosystem. It confirmed that an international settlement network, modelled after this payments network prototype, could enable faster and cheaper transactions than conventional cross-border payments channels. It also validated the use of smart contracts in use cases such as delivery-versus-payment (DvP) settlement with assets on private exchanges, conditional payments and escrow for trade, as well as payment commitments for trade finance.

After two years of laying the groundwork, crypto-friendly Arival Bank is launching in beta. With a team of 20 with offices in Singapore, Puerto Rico and Saint Petersburg, Fla., it plans to provide banking accounts to crypto startups via its sponsor bank, Puerto Rico-based San Juan Mercantile Bank and Trust. But to bank with Aival clients have to show what's in their wallet, because Arival is using tools from Elliptic to scan the crypto addresses that onboarding clients provide and see if there are any suspicious transactions.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched a S$1.75 million MAS Global FinTech Innovation Challenge to seek innovative solutions that can help financial institutions respond to COVID-19 and climate change challenges. It will be hosted entirely on the API Exchange (APIX), a cloud-based innovation platform, which will allow these solutions to be curated, contextualised, and validated.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has launched two programmes to promote the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence and data analytics for financial institutions. The two projects are aimed at developing fairness metrics in credit risk scoring and customer marketing, and helping financial institutions validate their data-based systems. https://www.mas.gov.sg/news/media-releases/2020/fairness-metrics-to-aid-responsible-ai-adoption-in-financial-services