FinTech

Against the backdrop of an increasingly fragmented payments landscape in Asia-Pacific, where digital wallets, local schemes, and situational payment preferences all coexist, Primer's Theo Spyrides shares how merchants can better align their payment flows with rapidly evolving consumer expectations. He notes that shoppers today are not only looking for their…

BENEFIT, the Bahraini fintech firm, and Ant International, a digital payment firm headquartered in Singapore, have partnered to launch cross-border QR payments between Bahrain’s BENEFIT QR payment scheme and Ant International’s global wallet gateway, Alipay+, during 2026 to support the transition to toward a more inclusive digital payments ecosystem.

Technologies like AI, machine learning, and tokenization are already transforming fraud prevention, and their impact is only set to grow. Beyond these, behavioral analytics, biometrics, and blockchain technology are emerging as complementary tools in the fight against fraud.

In the first half of 2025 alone, ASEAN cross-border QR payments surged, reaching 12.9 million transactions, Malaysian Central Bank's governor Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour said Wednesday.

TransferMate, the Ireland-based business to business (B2B) payments infrastructure as a service (IaaS) firm, has on Tuesday announced that it has received approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to add account issuance, domestic money transfers, and e-money issuance services in Singapore under its Major Payment Institution (MPI) license.

Thunes, a Singapore-based payment firm, announced Tuesday that First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s Global bank, has chosen Thunes as its provider to enable global mobile wallet payouts through its Direct Global Network.

XTransfer, the China-based business to business (B2B) cross-border trade payment platform and Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), Thailand's first indigenous bank, announced Monday the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to improve cross-border payments.

Payment gateway startup Payrex is teaming up with Billease, the Philippines’ Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform, to make flexible payment options available to thousands of online and offline merchants through a single API integration.

Coins.ph, the Philippines-based crypto and digital wallet platform, and Best Way Corporation (FinFan), a financial technology company based in Vietnam, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a strategic partnership to streamline and expand cross-border remittance and payment flows between the two countries.

XTransfer, a China-based business to business (B2B) cross-border trade payment platform and KBank, a Thailand-based financial institution in the AEC+3 (ASEAN Economic Community plus China, Japan, and South Korea) market, have teamed up to boost cross border solutions in ASEAN.