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CARDS & PAYMENTS
Credit card revenues threatened as Singaporean travellers shun usage In a report, Transferwise estimates that a typical Singaporean would lose as much as $650 in additional fees and currency exchange losses when using their cards overseas, pushing them to use cash instead.
FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY
Indian fintechs bagged $18.6b in deals from 2015-2019 Average deal size ballooned from $32.1m in 2015 to $38.9m (INR2.9b) in 2019. Investments reached an “abnormally high” $8.2b in 2017 with five transactions accounting for 81.2% or $7.3b of the amount.
6 ASIAN BANKING AND FINANCE | q2 2020
retail banking
Pandemic spurs digital payment take-up in Singapore The ongoing coronavirus pandemic will help drive digital payments’ adoption in Singapore, with non-cash payments expected to take a 54% market share in 2020, a report by GlobalData revealed.
MARKETS
Singapore regulator defers digital bank licence review to H2 The regulator earlier planned to announce the successful applicants in June. The extension will allow MAS to allocate resources to ensure the monetary and financial stability of Singapore.
RETAIL BANKING
Korean banks face irreversible headwinds as disruptions persist Four regional banks, namely Busan Bank, Daegu Bank, Jeju Bank, and Kyongnam Bank, are particularly in danger of asset-quality decay due to exposure to coronavirus-hit sectors and regions.
lending & credit
Financial inclusion needs to be more than just about technology Technology alone cannot solve the problem of bringing the underbanked into the finance system. For example, although a third of the Philippine population owns a smartphone, 44 million remain unbanked.
