7 Fintech Firms to Watch across Asia
A highly populated region with massive amounts of unbanked and uninsured people, Asia could barely design itself to be more of an obvious hotspot for FinTech investment. And it shows – the number of venture capital deals across the continent quadrupled between 2012 and 2017. Fintech companies in the region enjoy the prospect of enticing a portion of the expected 1.7 billion digital consumers in Asia by 2020, according to a report published by McKinsey & Company. The number of mobile users is increasing year-on-year and as we’ve detailed before, this digital adoption coupled with relatively undeveloped financial infrastructure makes southeast Asia and Asia Pacific particularly ripe for rich Fintech ecosystems.
From China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and more – here are our pick of 7 Fintech Firms to Watch across Asia:
#1 – TenX (Singapore)
TenX is at its essence a cryptocurrency wallet that doubles as a comprehensive payment platform, allowing users to spend their cryptocurrencies on cash to achieve its intention of actually playing part in the wider global economy. The Fintech startup raised US$83m in its 2017 ICO, and the platform can impressively claim the launch of a physical Visa card in the same year, which allows users to use their cryptocurrencies in places that may be hesitant to accept them digitally.
#2 – PolicyBazaar (India)
PolicyBazaar is an immensely popular insurance aggregator in its native India, and offers comparative analysis of insurance products and services filtered on price, unique benefits and industry quality. These services, along with its sister financial advisory platform, PaisaBazaar, helped the fintech firm raise $200m in the most recent fundraising round to date.
#3 – Viva Republica/Toss (South Korea)
Viva Republica, via its mobile app ‘Toss’, offers South Korean consumers a peer-2-peer mobile payments platform. With strong partnerships with traditional banks and other fintech startups, the company is modelled after the likes of Venmo, attempting to demystify bill-sharing and other peer-2-peer transactions for the average consumer.
#4 – Oriente (Hong Kong)
Oriente employs emergent technologies, from artificial intelligence, data science techniques and machine learning, to offer real-time credit scoring and tailored financial services from its offices across Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Shanghai. Also known as Finmas in Indonesia and Cashalo in the Philippines.
#5 – AntFinancial (China)
AntFinancial, being the fintech arm of Alibaba, is undoubtedly the most successful (or most powerful) names on this list, and is part of one of the world’s most valuable fintech firms. It recently entered the conversation of blockchain technology between Hong Kong and the Philippines.
#6 – Omise (Thailand)
Omise is Thailand’s foremost online payment gateway, offering businesses a slew of robust processing solutions. Interestingly, the company held a $25m ICO in 2017 before receiving an undisclosed investment from Krungsri, a Thai bank.
#7 – Hatcher+ (Singapore)
Hatcher+ is a Singaporean venture firm that uses data to drive its machine learning and AI technologies to identify early-stage opportunities. With promising partnerships with global investors and accelerators, the firm aims to optimise returns with proprietary algorithms and real-time monitoring for its partners.
Asia’s reputation as the world’s leading Fintech hub is likely to remain unmatched for the foreseeable future. But what makes this so? And how do you gain access to this increasingly saturated market? Luckily, CFTE is hosting a FREE live webinar at 12pm GMT on January 11th to provide these answers. Janos Barberis, founder of Supercharger (Asia’s largest FinTech Accelerator) will lead the discussion with our co-founder Huy Nguyen Trieu, and together they will examine the growth of the Asian Fintech startup scene, as well as discuss what makes the region so special.
