FinTech

Malaysia-based budget airline Batik Air and YeePay, one of China's payment service providers, have signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen connectivity between China and Malaysia through integrated digital payment and air ticket distribution solutions.

As digital commerce matures in Southeast Asia, the region's shift to digital payments is accelerating as merchant searches jump, according to a PayMongo’s analysis of five years of Google Trends data across six markets: Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

KPay Group, a fintech company co-headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore, has received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for a Major Payment Institution license, under the Payment Services Act 2019 for its Singapore subsidiary, KPay Merchant Service (Singapore).

Samsung Malaysia Electronics and Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank) have jointly launched QR payment functionality within Samsung Wallet in Malaysia, allowing eligible Samsung Galaxy users to access Maybank's MAE Scan & Pay feature natively within the wallet application from July 21, 2026.

US payments company Visa and China's Lianlian DigiTech have completed their first live business-to-business agentic transaction using LoopXPay, Lianlian's AI agent, in which the agent sourced a product sample from a supplier and completed the purchase within a single automated workflow.

Singapore's Ant International has added Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank to its Alipay+ payment network as the gateway's first banking partner in Hong Kong, allowing Hang Seng Mobile App users to make QR code payments at more than 100 million merchants across more than 55 countries and regions.

Vietnam should speed up the update of its regulatory sandbox framework for financial technology (fintech) sector as the country has established international financial centers in Ho Chi Minh City and Danang and pursues a double-digit economic growth target.

The United States-based enterprise software company ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) will invest $40 million in India's BUSINESSNEXT, a banking and financial services software platform, to accelerate the adoption of AI-driven banking operations across Asia-Pacific.

As many as 93 percent of finance professionals globally are concerned about the integrity and verifiability of AI-generated insights, according to a survey.

Singapore's Ant International has closed a Series A equity financing round of approximately $1.2 billion, with participation from existing investors Ant Group and Alibaba Group, alongside other unnamed international investment institutions.