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Insight - Kapronasia

With 37 retail banks for a population of 23.5 million, Taiwan is not the easiest market for digital banks to crack. Just about every Taiwanese adult has a bank account; in fact, many have more than one because of the tendency of companies in Taiwan to require employees to open a bank account with the company bank. Nevertheless, near ubiquitous smartphone penetration and the popularity of certain platform companies’ ecosystems offer digital banks an opening in Taiwan, especially given the effect of the pandemic on people’s banking habits.

The super app trio of Grab, GoTo and Sea is growing increasingly dominant in Southeast Asia, but not yet in Vietnam. In fact, it is the homegrown MoMo which leads Vietnam’s e-payments market. MoMo says it has a 60% market share and processes US$14 million annually for 25 million users.

We have to hand it to AirAsia: They tell the super app story well, probably better than some of the others whose task is less daunting than the beleaguered airline’s. Indeed, AirAsia is not a high-flying tech company aiming to use fintech to take its valuation and exit to the next level, but an airline facing an existential crisis wrought by the never-ending coronavirus pandemic. If AirAsia pulls off its transformation, it will stand as one of the great turnarounds in recent Asian corporate history, and perhaps pave the way for a new breed of platform company.

Not every tech company is cut out to be a fintech. Even the super apps that have bet everything on a fintech transformation will agree with that statement: They just will insist their particular business model is a winner. Not gaming hardware maker Razer though. The Hong Kong-listed firm is the latest non-financial company to have second thoughts about a fintech foray, pulling the plug on its Razer Pay e-wallet and card after failing to win a digital bank license in Singapore.

Revolut is the biggest neobank most of Asia has never heard of. Try as it might, Revolut just has not been able to make much of an impact in any APAC market yet, which is not a huge surprise given the amount of competition it faces and its distant home base in the UK. Revolut needs something to make it stand out from the crowd in APAC. Its new travel app Stays might be just what the doctor ordered.

It would have been difficult for Singapore’s Big 3 banks – DBS, OCBC and UOB – to beat their performance in the first quarter. That holds especially true for DBS and OCBC, which both posted record earnings in the January-March period. So while all three banks saw earnings fall in the second quarter on a quarterly basis, they still turned in a solid performance that beat analysts’ expectations.

Move over Grab and GoTo: There is a new Southeast Asian unicorn in town. The rapid ascendancy of Singapore-based payments startup Nium, which reached a US$1 billion valuation following a Series D round that raised more than US$200 million, shows that there is more to Southeast Asian tech than consumer-oriented super apps.

Just when buy now, pay later (BNPL) had seemingly reached an apex in Australia, Jack Dorsey’s Square buys Afterpay for US$29 billion, the largest M&A deal in Australian history. Anyone who thought Afterpay would be easily surpassed by deep-pocketed global payments giants like PayPal or Australia’s own banking heavyweights will have to think again.

Indonesia is fast becoming the most hotly contested of Southeast Asia’s digital services markets. No other market is both as large and untapped. With that in mind, Singapore’s Sea Group and hometown favorite GoTo have made significant plays in recent months. The former acquired Bank BKE, while Gojek upped its stake in Bank Jago and then merged with Tokopedia. Not to be outdone, Grab is teaming up with Tokopedia's rival Bukalapak. This move finally brings e-commerce into the Singaporean firm's ecosystem and strengthens the hands of both Grab and Bukalapak as they prepare to go public. 

Big Tech increasly has its eyes on Asia-Pacific’s growing fintech market. Yet most of the US tech giants are off to a late start in the region. Although it has been present in numerous APAC markets for years, PayPal is not really an exception to the rule. The U.S. payments giant has historically focused on North America and to a lesser extent Europe, with only a minor footprint in APAC. That is changing now that PayPal has super app ambitions and sees new opportunities in China, Southeast Asia and Australia.

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