As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
Central and South Asia
- InstaREM reports facilitating no-fee money transfers of almost $2 million to the flood-stricken southern Indian state of Kerala.
- Infosys announces plans to open tech hub in Arizona and hire 1,000 Americans by 2023.
- Qbera of Bengaluru, India raises $3 million in funding from Essel Group.
Latin America and the Caribbean
- Uruguay’s Prisma Campaigns partners with Tyfone to bring new personalized, automated marketing solutions to banks and credit unions.
- Brazil’s biggest independent brokerage, Grupo X, to offer a platform exchange for Bitcoin and Ethereum.
- Forbes profiles Brazilian online payments startup, EBANX.
Asia-Pacific
- Taiwan to begin testing of its first regulatory sandbox in December.
- SBI Ripple Asia wins license to launch blockchain-based payments app in Japan.
- Hong Kong goes live with Faster Payment System (FPS).
- Indonesia’s Bank Central Asia goes live on iGTB’s digital transaction banking platform.
- Coinbase teams up with Hong Kong-based crypto trading and risk management platform Caspian to promote institutional use of cryptocurrencies.
Sub-Saharan Africa
- Ugandan Orient Bank to deploy Acumen from Profile Software to manage treasury operations.
- Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM), a stock exchange based in the Ivory Coast, encourages West African fintech startups to join its innovation lab.
- MTN Uganda teams up with MasterCard and United Bank for Africa (UBA) launch new mobile money service.
Central and Eastern Europe
- Tinkoff Bank offers access to more than 10,000 global securities via its Tinkoff Investments Premium solution.
- Braintri awarded the Polish Innovation Award 2018 for its creation of Jiffee, a bluetooth-based mobile payment and loyalty technology, and Biffee, a core banking system offloading engine.
- ING Bank Romania to abandon physical cash desks this fall in favor of ATMs and its mobile banking app.
- Slovenian fintech Eligma launches cryptocurrency payment app.