Financial Industry Blog - Kapronasia

Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has historically taken a hands-off approach to cryptocurrency focused on segregating the local digital assets ecosystem from the banking system – which it wants to protect from volatility and risk. As long as banks stay away from digital assets, the FSC is willing to let local crypto exchanges operate with a high degree of autonomy provided they pay their taxes and keep on the straight and narrow. However, Taiwan has since the collapse of FTX been dealing with a surge in crypto-related crime, both money laundering and fraud. Criminals are exploiting unsuspecting investors and taking advantage of limited knowledge of digital assets among the general public, lawmakers and regulators.

Many platform companies have tried to replicate the success of Alipay and Tenpay as super apps, but very few have been successful. The concept has been difficult to execute in Southeast Asia, a culturally diverse region with many different regulatory regimes. Indonesia’s GoTo has always stood out, however, in that its main focus has been on its huge home market and it has avoided overextending itself in the manner of other super apps.

2023 may be remembered as the year that the Web3 bubble burst. Hype about the third iteration of the internet had reached a feverish pitch by early last year, though actual use cases remained limited. Yet amid the highest interest rates in three decades, as well as stubborn inflation, investors started to get cold feet about what is still a nebulous and nascent ecosystem underpinned by technology that many central banks do not trust.

India’s $357.5 billion payments sector has proven challenging for the U.S. tech’s giants. Only Google has established a strong foothold, while Facebook, WhatsApp and Amazon have been unable to grow their market share substantively, despite their respect strengths in social media, messaging and e-commerce.

Hong Kong has historically thrived as a financial center because of its ability to serve as a conduit for capital to and from mainland China. Under the one country, two systems governance model, Hong Kong’s financial system is more open than that of any mainland city, bestowing unique advantages on the territory. Meanwhile, with its capital markets flagging, Hong Kong has sought to use so-called “cornerstone investors” from the mainland – local government entities – to revive its IPO market. Results thus far have been underwhelming, suggesting the need for a more market-oriented approach.

It would be inaccurate to call retail payments on India’s paramount United Payments Interface (UPI) rail a full-fledged duopoly, but Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe do dominate this market with a combined 86% market share. PhonePe currently has a 48.3% share of UPI retail payments, while Google Pay has 37.6%. Paytm has a share of about 9%. No other company even has a full 1% share of the UPI market.

Given the fragmentation that characterizes many parts of Asia Pacific’s fintech sector, consolidation could improve the competitive environment, reducing the need to heavily subsidize customers and allowing firms to invest more in research and development as well as improving the customer experience. Yet across the region, from the most affluent economies to those that are still developing, big-ticket M&A transactions remain few and far between. In the past five years, there have only been a handful, such as the 2020 merger of Gojek and Tokopedia, the National Bank of Australia’s acquisition of the Aussie neobank 86 400 in 2021 and Square’s purchase of Afterpay in 2021.

Although the narrative in the financial industry is that digital is better, that is not always the case. Many rural economies across Asia operate on a largely informal and cash basis. A few factors are driving this. Firstly, there is often a lack of infrastructure to support cashless payments, such as limited internet access or banking services. Secondly, the rural populations often have a general distrust or lack of familiarity with digital payment systems. Additionally, the informal nature of many businesses in rural areas lends itself to cash transactions, which are perceived as more straightforward.

To reach net zero by 2050, Japan aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 46% compared to 2013 levels by 2030. To support that objective, in June 2021, the Japanese government announced its Green Growth Strategy and created a US$15 billion Green Innovation Fund. An additional important part of Japan’s path to net zero will be the world’s first sovereign transition bonds.

South Korea has long had an enthusiastic cryptocurrency investing community. According to the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU), by mid-2024 Korea will have about 6 million crypto investors, equivalent to 11.5% of the population. At the same time, crypto related crime is rising in Korea. While the most infamous example remains Do Kwon’s multi-billion-dollar TerraUSD-Luna fraud, other, smaller scale scams are proliferating, necessitating new regulation to protect investors and both deter and penalize crime. According to the FoFIU, Korean digital asset exchanges flagged 49% more suspicious transactions in 2023 compared to 2022.

In late 2020, Grab and Gojek were said to be close to agreement on a merger. If the deal had gone through, it would have created a juggernaut that probably would have dominated ride hailing and food delivery in most key Southeast Asian markets, while the combined fintech operations would have been formidable. However, GoTo ultimately instead merged with Tokopedia in a deal that likely appealed more to Indonesian regulators. So it is with great interest that 3 ½ years later, we observe reported talks between Grab and GoTo about a merger.

Singapore, a small island nation known for its robust economy and forward-thinking policies, has been making concerted efforts to promote sustainability and address environmental challenges in recent years. The appointment of Ravi Menon, the former Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), as the new sustainability officer, is a notable step towards advancing the country's sustainability agenda. However, while this move signifies Singapore's commitment to sustainability, the country's ability to make a significant global impact remains uncertain.

South Korea’s digital banks are the exception to a rule in East Asia’s advanced economies: They are extremely successful by multiple metrics instead of redundant. While the relative weak digital offerings of incumbent banks in Korea helps explain the phenomenon, it is not the main reason. We believe that South Korea’s three digital banks – Kakao Bank, K Bank and Toss Bank –  have been able to develop truly competitive products, in contrast to their counterparts in the other Asian tiger economies of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, and gradually have made themselves indispensable to many Korean retail customers.

While the buy now, pay later (BNPL) concept has proven immensely popular with consumers worldwide, developing a sustainable business model as a BNPL focused fintech is a challenging endeavor. For that reason, it is always noteworthy when a BNPL firm reaches the profitability milestone. The Philippines’ Billease, founded in 2017, appears to have done so in 2023.

Despite having significant promise for fintech investment, with one of the world’s largest unbanked populations, Pakistan’s digital finance sector faces mounting challenges as the broader startup ecosystem is finding it hard to attract funding. In the 2023 fiscal year, fintech funding in Pakistan fell 80% to just US$20 million while the number of deals decreased 44% to just eight.

Digital banks have sprung up across Asia in recent years. In many cases, they are having little impact on the overall banking market. Affluent societies like Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan are not lacking banking options. Even middle-income countries like Malaysia and Thailand have limited financial inclusion needs.

Vietnam is one of the most promising markets for fintech in Southeast Asia, with the payments segment continuing to lead the way. While talk of Vietnam going truly cashless is premature, there is a steady transition to digital payments in the country. Data compiled by the State Bank of Vietnam show that non-cash payment transactions increased by 63.3% in volume and 41.45% in value in January, compared to the same period in 2023. Many Vietnamese banks now have over 90% of their transactions conducted via digital channels.

The Philippines in late March began to blocking access to Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. The country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it received the assistance of the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) to block access to Binance’s website and online trading platform, according to a statement published by the SEC.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, China emerged as the top green bond market globally. Sales of internationally aligned green bonds in China reached US$21.83 billion in the final three months of 2023, up 131% on a quarterly basis, according to the Climate Bonds Initiative data. This was well ahead of the No. 2 market, the U.S., which had green bond sales of US$12.87 billion and No. 3 Germany, which recorded sales of US$7.14 billion.

Ant International’s global expansion efforts have grown increasingly strategic since the launch of its Alipay+ and its pivot to boosting interoperability among e-wallets in Asia. While it is difficult to measure the financial success of these efforts, the growth of Ant’s international payments network in the last 18 months has been impressive and the company has smartly pared back its presence in certain markets due to geopolitical pressures. With international travel having recovered to pre-pandemic levels, Alipay+ likely has significant room to grow, especially in neighboring countries.

Singapore-based payments fintech Nium has been busy expanding internationally as it seeks to put itself in the most favorable position possible ahead of a planned IPO in 2025. In recent months, Nium has expanded on multiple continents, from South America to different parts of Asia.

The tumult in Indonesia’s P2P lending industry should not come as a surprise. It is exceedingly difficult to both regulate this industry fairly and allow it to maximize financial inclusion benefits. Strict regulation such as is practiced in Taiwan and South Korea (though Seoul may make some changes soon) minimizes malfeasance but also limits the usefulness of the platforms. Amid the current meltdown of P2P lending platforms, which is hitting retail investors hard, the sector faces an inflection point in Indonesia.

With Thailand finally getting its digital banking application process underway, it is worth taking a closer look at the prospective applicants. As expected, startups are nowhere to be found. Instead, the likely applicants – and winners – are a mix of Thailand’s ultra-wealthy tycoons, prominent incumbent banks and Asian tech giants.

It has been a rollercoaster seven weeks for India’s preeminent fintech Paytm, which on January 31 was accused by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of “persistent noncompliance.” To be precise, it was Paytm Payments Bank that the RBI named, and it is the payments unit of the company that ceased to exist as of March 15. The good news for Paytm is that the RBI’s crackdown on its payment bank is not a lethal blow – and was never intended as such.

With funding for fintech startups having fallen precipitously from the days of ultra-low interest rates and a focus on growth at all costs, a reality is setting in: Disrupting the giants of incumbent financial services is no easy task. In many cases, it has proven elusive.

The March 7 launch of Hong Kong’s wholesale CBDC project was memorable. Firstly, the enthusiasm of the city’s financial regulators for this project is strong. While painting in broad brushstrokes, they outlined some lofty objectives for the digital HKD. The project aims to develop an interoperable platform that will improve efficiency, transparency and financial inclusion in the monetary and financial systems. “We’re calling it Project Ensemble” internally, to conjure a group of items working together, Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) deputy chief executive Howard Lee said at a press conference. “We hope it will play beautifully, like music.

India’s United Payments Interface (UPI) payments rail is the most successful initiative of its kind. Domestically, UPI has achieved a dominance that no other payments rail is likely to surpass. According to a report by PwC, it is projected that daily UPI transactions will reach 1 billion by FY 2026-27, representing approximately 90% of India's non-cash transactions. 2024 started with UPI transactions processed in January reaching a record high of INR 18.41 trillion. Given UPI's success, India has sought to expand its footprint internationally and in the past few years it has become available in a number of countries from the United Arab Emirates and Bhutan to the UK and France. Yet questions remain about whether UPI can serve as a foundational platform for digital payments outside of India.

Throughout Asia, most countries have introduced digital banks in some form, either to increase market competition, boost financial inclusion or both. Thailand is an exception. It has approached digital banking with a marked lack of urgency, with the Bank of Thailand (BoT) mulling the idea for several years before in Jan. 2023 stating that it would allow digital banks by 2025. In a March 5 announcement, the Kingdom’s Finance Ministry said that Thailand will accept applications for virtual banks within the next six months with the goal of supporting people with no or limited access to financial services.

Cybersecurity has always been a crucial aspect of operations for financial institutions and technology providers alike. However, the intensifying digitization of financial services, combined with increasing computational power and the ongoing shift of financial activities online, is amplifying cybersecurity’s importance. With the annual cost of cybercrime soaring worldwide, financial institutions and market participants across Asia Pacific must reevaluate and reinforce their cybersecurity.

It’s been a long road to reach this point but Sea has finally done it: The Singapore-based company recorded its first full year of profitability in 2023. Net income was US$163 million, while revenue reached US$13 billion, up 5% from 2022. However, Sea owed its profitability more to its performance in the first half of 2023 than the second as it lost money in both the third and fourth quarters. Questions remain about the company’s long-term outlook given the intensity of competition it faces in both e-commerce and digital financial services.

Page 6 of 55