Has Fintech drifted from its promise to create impactful change?
In this week's update we look at recent Fintech news and share examples that create encouragement on the impact Fintech can still have.
TechCrunch recently penned an article linking the initial vision of Fintech back to its roots of mobilizing capital, serving the underbanked, and stabilizing the financial services system. With headlines of the FTX collapse resurfacing and other Fintech misnomers refusing to leave the global consciousness, it’s easy to see how we’ve drifted away from that – but is it true?
Looking to Singapore, here is some of the latest fintech activity from the market:
Coinbase has obtained a Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in an effort to “stretch the broader Web3 ecosystem” in Singapore
UBS has launched a blockchain-native tokenized VCC pilot fund in Singapore. The fund aims to bring different assets on-chain as part of an initiative led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Peach Payments Co-Founder, Rahul Jain, on the close of their recent funding round: “This funding has been raised to accelerate growth and will be used to build out new products and expand into new countries in Africa. “
There’s also been a bubbling of activity in the African payments space:
Peach Payments (trading name Baobab Payments) closed a funding round at USD 30 million, sharing the news on Oct 3rd 2023
Stitch, a fintech payments company in South Africa, announced that it closed a USD 25 million Series A Extension – also releasing the news on Oct 3rd
In what seems like an age ago now, payments orchestration platform Revio announced their USD 5.2 million seed round just over a week ago.
These companies share a version of expansion into Africa for the proliferation of their products to the underserved as to how the funding will be used. It’s not only Fintech companies taking action in the region:
1. MTN’s Fintech arm, which Master Card took a minority stake in this August, is now placing focused effort on the rest of Africa and looking to provide:
o The ability for SA-based mobile money users to send money to recipients in real-time across 10 different countries
o An e-wallet specifically targeted at informal stores in townships so that MTN can catch a share of the traditional cash transactions
o Point of Sale devices which process transactions and provide the ability to process other transactions like airtime purchase
o A funeral insurance product that allows customers to pay off full cover in 6-12 months instead of until “death do us part”
2. Old Mutual (a large non-banking financial services group in South Africa) is mustering its capability and reach to deliver financial services products (either its own or through Partners) to the African market via its already substantial footprint.
Stepping away from Africa, there’s been movement and activity in financial solutions relating to HR outcomes – for the betterment of the financial well-being of employees:
· Deel, a remote working fintech, is helping companies manage off-cycle payments, offering a streamlined ability to bulk terminate employees on the Payroll system, and helping speed up the relocation of employees easier from a payroll point of view.
· Paynet, Malaysi’s national payments network, has partnered with Paywatch to offer flexible payroll solutions to its workforce. Employees can access their earned wages in real time, allowing them flexibility and autonomy in their financial lives.
And this was only the activity in recent weeks! It’s encouraging to see Fintech firms lifting their sleeves to take on some of the promises we’ve come to expect from them. It would do us well to hold onto these examples before the news headlines and social media echo chambers dwarf the news with something more heartrate-inducing – like the outcomes from FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial.