FinTech

With the inclusion principle integrated into main innovation projects, Ant International now links 2 billion user accounts with 150 million merchants through multi-layered partnerships, provides global account services to 1.6 million SMEs, and helps over 30 million underserved businesses and individuals access quality credit.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and Bank Indonesia (BI) have signed a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) that strengthens bilateral cooperation between the two central banks.

Tencent Cloud, a cloud unit of Chinese giant Tencent, has partnered with Ryt Bank, an AI-powered bank in Malaysia, to support conversational banking services for everyday payments.

Indonesia’s buy now pay later (BNPL) firm Kredivo has acquired nearly 100 percent of Timo Digital Bank, a Vietnamese digital banking platform developed in cooperation with Vietnamese major lender BVBank.

Under the guidance of Bank Indonesia and the People’s Bank of China, Indonesia and China have launched a cross-border QR payment linkage connecting Indonesia’s QRIS payment system with Chinese payment platforms through Alipay+ and UnionPay International.

Expansion doesn't break companies. Invisible infrastructure gaps do. Singapore scaleups have always punched above their weight. The ones that continue to do so aren’t just moving fast; they’re building the financial infrastructure to support the speed. 

Global spending on digital identity verification will increase by 55 percent between 2026 and 2030, rising from just under $19 billion in 2026, according to a new study by the United Kingdom-based Juniper Research.

France-headquartered IDEMIA Secure Transactions (IST) has announced a strategic partnership with Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet) to support the expansion of digital payments in Malaysia.

QR payments have emerged as a preferred option among Malaysians, with transaction volumes on the DuitNow QR more than doubling to three billion transactions in 2025, underscoring both the scale and speed of adoption, Bank Negara Malaysia said.

China’s online and mobile payment platform Alipay has launched a new AI payment processing product aimed at enabling businesses in mainland China, including small firms and one-person companies, to accept payments from autonomous AI agents.