FinTech

Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to become a foundational capability for financial institutions as technology advances rapidly, but stronger governance and cybersecurity measures will be needed to ensure its safe and sustainable adoption, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) managing director Chia Der Jiun said.

Grab has been pursuing growth through both acquisitions and expansion of its existing businesses, according to the report. Earlier this year, Grab acquired US-based Stash Financial Inc at an enterprise value of US$425 million and bought Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations from Delivery Hero SE for $600 million.

Thailand's Krungsri renewed a five-year agreement with Kyndryl covering core infrastructure, mainframe services, automation and AI-enabled operations.

Ant International, Mastercard, and Visa will collaborate on common "Know-Your-Agent" standards to verify the AI agents that make payments, as the three payment groups push to let autonomous software transact across their networks.

Ant International, Mastercard and Visa are developing common checks for identifying and monitoring AI agents across payment networks.

Hong Kong-based Reap has launched a Virtual Asset Ledger that lets card-issuing clients make bitcoin and other virtual-asset balances spendable at the point of sale.

The United States-based Circle Internet Group, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, will acquire Singapore's Tazapay, a cross-border business-payments company, in an all-stock deal to expand its global payments network.

Bombay High Court set aside orders freezing about ₹100 crore in Coda Payments India’s bank and payment accounts, while leaving related proceedings unresolved.

Singapore-based banking group DBS and US lender Citi have teamed up to enable instant cross-border USD payments with tokenized deposits.

Citi Hong Kong will launch a virtual credit card with a dynamic CVC for eligible Mastercard customers to add protection to online transactions.