Jakarta-based Xendit is Southeast Asia’s latest fintech unicorn, hitting a US$1 billion valuation after a Series C fundraising round that raised US$150 million led by Tiger Capital Management with participation from returning investors Accel, Amasia and Goat Capital. It has now raised a total of US$238 million. Xendit is best known for its digital payments infrastructure.

Singapore-based Nium became Southeast Asia’s first B2B payments unicorn in late July following a series D funding round that raised more than US$200 million. Nium is using that substantial capital injection to support an ambitious international expansion plan that includes the United States, Europe and India.

PayPal has long been one of the world’s preeminent online payment companies, but to stay at the forefront of the industry it needs to capture new market segments and build a larger presence in Asia Pacific, the fastest-growing region for digital finance. Targeted acquisitions will be integral to PayPal’s strategy, hence the recent purchase of the Japanese buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform Paidy for US$2.7 billion.

It is hard to believe that during the first half of 2021 Chinese IPOs in the United States raised a record US$12.4 billion, per Dealogic’s estimates. That was the boom before the bust, which had been brewing for a long time but came to the fore with the disastrous debut of Didi Chuxing on the NYSE. Like Alibaba’s nixed IPO heralded a widespread regulatory crackdown on fintech, Didi’s is doing the same for Chinese IPOs overseas.

Ant Group-backed Mynt has grown expeditiously thanks to the success of its e-wallet GCash in the Philippines. In January, Mynt closed a funding round that raised US$175 million and brought the company close to unicorn status. In late July, Mynt’s chief commercial officer Frederic Levy told Nikkei Asia that the company was aiming to become a “double unicorn” – with a valuation of US$2 billion. But it is unclear if Mynt can maintain the same level of growth now that the Philippines has five genuine digital banks.

Never short of ambition, Revolut is aiming for an Australia banking license roughly a year after formally launching its app Down Under. The UK neobank unicorn is in discussions with the Australia Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) as it seeks approval to take customer deposits and provide lending services.

With the Australian buy now, pay later (BNPL) segment increasingly crowded, some of the biggest players are searching for greener pastures overseas. While Afterpay has been the most aggressive in terms of global expansion, its rival Zip (Australia’s No. 2 pure-play BNPL firm) is catching up. Having already expanded to New Zealand, the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the UK, Zip is now foraying into Africa with the acquisition of South African payments startup Payflex.

Digital banks are fast becoming a fixture of the Asia-Pacific fintech boom, in many ways a manifestation of Big Tech’s desire to become Big Fintech. In contrast to the United States and Europe, where ascendant digital lenders are usually pure-play operations that began as humble startups, APAC has an increasing number of so-called digibank startups backed by the region’s largest tech companies and some major incumbent financial services firms.

Sea Group just can’t lose when it comes to investor sentiment, even though the company’s losses widened on an annual basis to US$433.7 million in the second quarter from US$393.5 million a year earlier. The day before it reported Q2 earnings, Sea’s share price was about US$291 and as of August 23 it had reached US$315. Over the past year, the stock has risen more than 105% while Sea’s market cap now stands at US$168 billion.

The Philippines has returned to an unenviable position: It is once again one of the only East Asian countries on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) Grey list, alongside Cambodia. Countries on the grey list have been flagged by FATF for insufficient anti-money laundering and/or counterterrorism financing controls. Being on the list creates regulatory headaches for financial institutions – such as higher interest rates and processing fees – and can be detrimental to a country’s business environment.