The economic downturn fomented by the coronavirus pandemic has been a rude awakening for cash-burning fintech startups. They and their backers are finding that there's a price to pay for championing breakneck growth over profitability. In contrast, fintechs with solid balance sheets, like London-based digital money transfer firm TransferWise (profitable for three years in a row), are poised to pursue targeted expansion. Tapping resilient demand for its cross-border payments services, TransferWise recently inked a partnership with China's Alipay and expanded to the United Arab Emirates.

Libra is the most visible profile prong of Facebook's fintech offensive, but it may not be the most important. Not for now, anyway. U.S. officials and regulators remain circumspect about Facebook's digital currency project. Facebook has a long way to go before it wins their trust. In Asia, Facebook has a seemingly simpler task: Roll out the digital wallet of WhatsApp to monetize its large regional user base, concentrated in India and Indonesia. That's proving to be difficult too though.

In every crisis, there are opportunities. While many investors are tightening their belts during the coronavirus pandemic, some are opening their wallets. Now is the time to double down on certain investments. Take Australia's Airwallex as an example. The Melbourne-based cross-border payments platform closed a mammoth US$160 million (A$250 million) funding round in April, bringing its valuation to US$1.8 billion from US$1 billion. Less than half of the capital was raised in January, according to Australian Financial Review. Airwallex managed to raise the rest amid the pandemic's surge.

Xiaomi is the first Chinese smartphone maker to foray into digital banking. The Beijing-based firm secured a digital banking license in Hong Kong last year and began a trial period in late March. It also applied for a digital wholesale bank (DWB) license in Singapore, which allows the holder to provide non-retail banking services.

Finally after all the discussions about China's central bank digital currency, we're getting close to the actual launch as the platform goes into pilot.

The Philippines has long been one of the most promising Asian markets for fintechs. The archipelago of more than 7,641 islands has a population of nearly 107 million, second only to Indonesia among Asean countries. Nearly 70% of adults in the Philippines are unbanked, while smartphone penetration in the country is growing steadily. Given the Philippines' geography - with many people living far from retail banks - and development stage, fintech adoption can drive financial inclusion.

Digital banking had been growing steadily in the Philippines prior to the coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic hit the country in early March, resulting in the government implementing a lockdown in the metro Manila area beginning from the middle of that month. Some banks have seen online banking grow more quickly since the restrictions were imposed than previously. Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) posted a 117% increase in new sign-ups for its online banking services from March 17-26 according to fintechnews.sg. RCBC also recorded a 633% increase in the number of times its cardless ATM withdrawal function was used during that period.

2020 started well for Australia's neobanks. Deposit bases were growing quickly. Some Australian neobanks were on track to reach their deposit goals well ahead of their sales forecasts. That was before the coronavirus became a global pandemic. The virus has spread like wildfire globally in the past few months, sickening 2.5 million people and causing more than 170,000 fatalities. Australia has not become an epicenter of the outbreak, but it has still had to contend with thousands of cases and entered a strict lockdown on March 23. It is highly likely that the Australian economy will soon enter recession for the first time since 1991.

Under this scenario, neobanks may face a tough uphill climb. Grim economic conditions could affect Australians' willingness to switch their primary banking provider or even open a new account with a different provider.

Hong Kong issued eight digital banking licenses more than a year ago, but just one of the new virtual banks is fully operational, ZhongAn Insurance-backed ZA Bank. ZA Bank began operations this month after completing a mandatory trial in March. Three other Hong Kong digital banks recently began trials: Ant Financial's Ant Bank, Xiaomi and AMTD's Airstar Bank and Standard Chartered-backed Mox Bank. The other four Hong Kong digital banks have not announced when they will launch trials.

Initially, it seemed Hong Kong's virtual banks had arrived in the right place and at the right time. The city has plenty of banking options, but innovation among incumbents has been limited in recent years. Retail customers are eager for new digitally forward banking platforms. But last year's protests and the coronavirus outbreak have delivered a punishing blow to Hong Kong's economy. The city fell into recession well before the global economic malaise brought on by the coronavirus. Hong Kong's digital banks have struggled to gain momentum under these circumstances.

In early April, China's Starbucks rival Luckin Coffee was revealed to be a paper tiger. The company that was supposedly giving the U.S. coffee giant a run for its money in the world's largest consumer market had literally fabricated its success. To be sure, Luckin's 4,500 China stores - exceeding Starbucks' 4292 - were no mirage. But the company's sales figures were bogus. On April 2, Luckin publicized the results of an internal investigation showing RMB2.2 billion (US $311 million) in fraudulent sales from the second to the fourth quarter of 2019.

Here comes China's blockchain bandwagon, ready or not. The novel coronavirus may have slowed the Chinese economy down, but now that life is slowly returning to normal, blockchain hype is back. China currently has about 35,000 blockchain companies, according to information portal Tianyacha. In Guangdong Province alone, there are 20,000 of them. Even amidst the coronavirus pandemic, more than 2,000 new blockchain companies were formed between January and March, according to Forkast News.

Unsurprisingly, most of these firms are not focused on distributed ledger technology. Research by Forkast shows that just over 500 of them have a state-issued blockchain service filing number. Without one of those, a company is not a certified blockchain provider in China. China's 01 Think Tank found that about 1,000 of 30,000 blockchain firms in China are engaged in business that uses distributed ledger technology.