Latest Insight
- Cambodia’s Bakong goes from strength to strength
- Pine Labs eyes IPO in second half of 2025: A strategic move amid market volatility
- Bitter lessons from Chocolate Finance: A cautionary tale in fintech
- Bank of Korea rules out Bitcoin as a reserve asset
- Tokenization Use Cases: Transforming Traditional Financial Assets
- Tyme Group raises US$250 million in Series D funding round
- Why UPI is bigger than ever
- Why Partnerships Are The Gateway For Digital Asset Custody Transformation
- Airwallex sees double-digit growth in 2024
- Why the Indonesian crypto market is growing fast
Latest Reports
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Beyond Swipe and Tap: Rewriting the Rules
The roundtable discussion at Japan FinTech Festival brought together leading experts from banking, fintech, technology and regulatory backgrounds to explore the current state and future potential of account-to-account (A2A) payments in Japan. The wide-ranging discussion surfaced several key insights and themes that will shape the trajectory of A2A in the… Breaking Borders
Despite progress in payment systems, the absence of a unified, cross-border Real-Time Payments (RTP) network means that intermediaries play a crucial role in facilitating connectivity. This report examines the ongoing complexities, challenges, and initiatives in creating a seamless payment landscape across Asia. Innovate to Elevate
In the dynamic and diverse financial landscape of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, banks are at a pivotal juncture, facing the twin imperatives of innovation and resilience to meet evolving consumer expectations and navigate digital disruption.
Press Release
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Kapronasia's Research Director, Josef Jelinek, Invited as Panel Speaker at Sibos 2024Sibos, organized by SWIFT and held annually, is a premier event for global financial services professionals, offering a platform for thought leadership and networking. At this year’s conference, Josef Jelinek, Director of Research, participated in a Swift Innotribe panel on "The Future of Financial Inclusion: A View from APAC."
In its recent annual report, the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) presented data on the Bakong blockchain-based payment system which showed impressive growth. The volume of transactions in USD have increased by 133% and those in Cambodian Riel have grown 334%. Payment volumes on Bakong during 2024 amounted to US$105 billion which represents more than three times the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
The Indian fintech landscape is set to witness a significant development with Pine Labs' initial public offering (IPO) in the second half of 2025. The payment solutions provider, backed by global investors such as Peak XV, PayPal, Mastercard, and Singapore’s Temasek, aims to raise approximately US$1 billion through its IPO. This move comes amidst challenging market conditions and will mark Pine Labs’ second attempt at going public after deferring a previous plan to list in the U.S.
In March 2025, Singapore-based fintech company Chocolate Finance found itself at the center of a storm after a poorly planned promotion led to a significant backlash from customers. The incident, which began with the abrupt suspension of instant withdrawals and the imposition of a spending cap on its debit card, has raised important questions about crisis management, customer trust, and the sustainability of loyalty programs in the fintech industry.
The Bank of Korea (BOK) has officially ruled out Bitcoin as a reserve asset, citing concerns over its extreme volatility, high transaction costs, and non-compliance with International Monetary Fund (IMF) guidelines. This decision places South Korea in alignment with several other financial authorities worldwide but also highlights a growing divide in global perspectives on cryptocurrency adoption in national reserves.
This is the third blog in our series on Digital Asset Custody, in partnership with Ripple. The first blog in the series highlighted the rise of digital assets in Asia Pacific, exploring the opportunities and challenges for custodian banks in this growing space. The second blog explored how strategic partnerships with established technology providers enable custodian banks to efficiently and securely navigate the complexities of digital asset custody.
Tyme Group, which operates digital banks in South Africa and the Philippines, has raised US$250 million in its Series D funding round, valuing it at US$1.5 billion. The new capital injection will support Tyme’s expansion into new markets, including Vietnam and Indonesia. In Vietnam, where it only has merchant lending operations, Tyme plans to roll out core transaction banking products later in 2025. In Indonesia, meanwhile, the digital bank also plans to launch merchant cash advance and is looking for a banking license, according to Reuters.
This is the second blog in our series on Digital Asset Custody, in partnership with Ripple. The first blog in the series highlighted the rise of digital assets in Asia Pacific, exploring the opportunities and challenges for custodian banks in this growing space.
Tencent-backed Airwallex appears to have had another banner year. In a Dec. 10 press release, the B2B payments firm said that its global revenue jumped 73% year-on-year while in the Asia-Pacific Region growth revenue growth was even brisker at 83%.
In early December, BSP Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier told reporters that there is a “possibility” the Philippine central bank would allow four new digital banks in 2025. The regulator highlighted key factors that would be considered in determining the winners, which were mostly boilerplate – a unique value proposition, an innovative business model not yet offered by existing market players, and so on. The capitalization requirements, meanwhile, are modest, at 1 billion Philippine pesos (US$17,300,000).
Singapore-based fintech startup YouTrip is increasingly confident about its business prospects and has even started talking about an IPO – though the company’s leadership will not commit to a date yet. YouTrip is an anomaly. In 2023, it managed to raise US$50 million in a tough period for fintech funding, which supported the expansion of its multicurrency wallet in Malyasia, Singapore and Thailand. It achieved profitability in 2022 and has stayed in the black. In November, YouTrip CEO Caecilia Chu told Nikkei Asia that the company processed US$10 billion in transactions last year and is projected to see a 70% annual revenue increase in 2024.
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It was not long ago that Viva Republica CEO Lee Seung-gun praised South Korea’s fintech market and financial regulators. “Korea is a market where fintech companies can build their foundational strength for overseas expansion,” he said in September at Korea Investment Week in Seoul. “There is no country where the government leads financial innovation as much as Korea,” he added. And yet Viva Republica seems to have decided against an IPO on the Korea Stock Exchange (KRX). Instead, it is likely to go public in the United States, according to several Korean media reports.
Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) is among the most proactive lenders in Southeast Asia when it comes to digital finance. It recently has started on work on a Thai baht stablecoin project and is setting up a digital bank in Thailand together with South Korea’s Kakao Bank.
South Korea’s K Bank had a strong third quarter during which its net income surged almost 181% annually to 37 billion won (US$26.3 million). Through September, the online lender had accrued profits of 122.4 billion won, up 220% from the first nine months of 2023. K Bank’s customer numbers are rising steadily as well, reaching 12 million by the end of September, thanks to strong demand for high-interest rate deposits, cashback programs and mortgage loans. There was really no bad news in K Bank’s earnings report, but the lender still faces significant challenges due to its close ties with the cryptocurrency exchange Upbit and its general high reliance on digital assets to fuel growth.
This is the first blog in our series on Digital Asset Custody, in partnership with Ripple.
For nearly 3 ½ years, the Philippines has been on the gray list of The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which assessed the Southeast Asian country to have inadequate money-laundering and counterterrorism financing controls. Since then, the Philippines has been working to improve those controls so that it can be removed from the list, which is detrimental to the country’s business environment. Its next opportunity to be removed from the list will be in February 2025.