KoinWorks, Indonesia's largest P2P lending platform, has raised US$16.5 million in its Series B funding round, signaling strong interest for alternative lending sources in Southeast Asia's largest economy. Established in 2016, KoinWorks caters to the underbanked and unbanked alike in Indonesia, whose scant credit profiles do not sit well with traditional lenders.

The Vietnamese mobile wallet Vimo and point-of-sale provider mPOS are merging to form a new entity called NextPay, which will seek to raise US$30 million to expand domestically and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. NextPay's objective is to combine online and offline solutions into one with Vimo as the online channel and mPOS as the offline one.

Korea's would-be challenger banks received a stern rebuke from the nation's Financial Supervisory Commission in May as the top financial regulator rejected applications for a virtual-banking license from Viva Republica-backed Toss Bank and Kiwoom Securities-backed Kiwoom Bank. The regulator found Toss's capital situation problematic and Kiwoom's plan unfeasible. Both Toss Bank and Kiwoom Bank could re-apply for internet-banking licenses later in the year.

Australia's banks are in for quite a fight if Morgan Stanley's new report is accurate. The U.S. investment bank estimates in its newest Australia In Transition report that digital wallets could capture US$22 billion of revenue that in a less digitized world would have gone to the banks. Morgan Stanley's advice for the banks is blunt: Up your digital game before it's too late.

With an eye on going public, Singapore's ride-hailing giant Grab needs to show profitability, or failing that, strong potential to be in the black soon. Serving as a high tech taxi or food delivery service no longer looks like it will be enough for investors. Instead, Grab wants to be a go-to digital bank. If Singapore regulators grant Grab a virtual-banking license, the company will be poised to test out its fintech hypothesis in its home market.

Chinese peer-to-peer lending firms, reeling from the crackdown on P2P business at home, are starting to look for new business overseas. The fledgling India market is of great interest to several Chinese P2P companies, including 9F Group, CashBUS, and WeShare, according to reports in India's English-language media. The Chinese firms are attracted by India's huge size, steady economic growth and relative easy of market entry.

There must be room in Asia for one more super app. Ride-hailing giants Grab and Go-Jek are going that route, determined to show investors that they're more than glorified high-tech taxi services. The Philippines' Yuchengco Group, a family-owned conglomerate with businesses ranging from banking and insurance to travel, healthcare and funeral services, is now throwing its hat into the super app ring, with a very different approach. Yuchengco intends to replicate its offline services online within a single app: It sounds like reverse O2O, in the sense that services which were once offline are about to go online.

China's UnionPay can't beat them, so it might as well join them: The payments giant is entering a partnership with UK-based fintech Tribe Payments that will allow banks and fintechs to issue its credit cards in Europe from July. Facing intense competition from internet finance titans Alipay and WeChat Pay at home, UnionPay is keen to drum up new business abroad. What better way than to cooperate with a rising British fintech?

Uber's recent initial public offering underwhelmed investors, as the ride-hailing juggernaut raised $76 billion instead of the $120 billion that had been once expected. Since the IPO, Uber has lost about $5 billion in market capitalization. Analysts say that it could lose another $1 billion before the year ends.

The main problem for Uber is simple: Its core ride-hailing business isn't profitable. For an early-stage startup, profitability isn't essential. But Uber has been around for a decade, and it's still in the red. In 2018, it posted a net loss of $1.8 billion. Chances are high that the company will not make a profit this year either.

For the first time in over two decades, China’s central bank has taken control of a private bank. Baoshang Bank Co. which was founded in 1998 is headquartered in Baotou. With assets worth about 576 billion yuan ($83 billion) the lender is well established in the Inner-Mongolia region. Tomorrow Group, which holds around 89 percent of Baoshang Bank is claimed to have expropriated a serious amount of capital leading to major credit problems.