Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo today announced the appointment of 12 of his new presidential special staffs which included Ruangguru founder and managing director Belva Devara, and Amartha founder Andi Taufan Garuda Putra, Kompas reported.

In a press statement, Devara stated that he will continue on holding his position as founder and managing director of the Jakarta-based startup.

“As expressed by the President himself, I am expected to continue working in my current position as managing director of Ruangguru, to never forget my roots in the tech sector. That way, I can give him relevant inputs on new innovation to help the society,” he said.

Also Read: [Updated] Breaking: Nadiem Makarim named Minister of Education and Culture of Indonesia

The appointment of the two startup founders followed the appointment of Indonesian ride-hailing unicorn gojek founder and CEO Nadiem Makarim as Minister of Education and Culture last month.

President Joko Widodo himself has been publicly speaking about including the younger generation, particularly from the tech and entrepreneurship sector, into his new presidency.

These appointments are part of a growing trend in Southeast Asia of startup founders expanding into politics and public service. In Thailand, Pakornwut Udompipatskul, former General Partner of StockRadars, has also been elected as members of the parliament earlier this year.

Ruangguru is a Jakarta-based edutech startup which offers a range of services of private tutor marketplace to exam practice platform. The startup’s most recent funding round is a Series B round led by UOB Venture Management; it has also received a grant from MIT SOLVE programme.

Amartha is a P2P lending platform that focusses on women-led micro businesses. The startup has raised its Series A funding round in 2017.

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Image Credit: Ruangguru

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Islamic finance has recently gained popularity in the Southeast Asian market due to its advantages. Apart from being a promising instrument to build wealth, it is also being touted for its ability to ensure justice in society and promote financial inclusion.

But how can Islamic finance reach out to a wider audience, especially those living in rural areas in Malaysia, where its advantages are badly needed?

This is where the sector can tap into fintech to further widens its reach.

As explained in the e27 Malaysia Fintech Report 2019, the adoption of Islamic finance through fintech has a large opportunity to connect with the masses, especially rural population who have less access to financial products and services.

“But in order to do this, Islamic finance must forge its own path with fintech, as it cannot replicate conventional financial instruments or products and expect adoption,” the report stated.

Also Read: ALAMI is on a journey to popularise sharia-based finance in Indonesia. Here’s how they do it

It also stressed that Islamic finance must utilise tech to meaningfully provide bespoke financial products suited to the needs of customers and microenterprises in rural areas, as the rural population still represents the largest underserved customer base.

Beyond serving the underbanked communities, sharia-compliant fintech products also have the potential to launch its products and services in the global market.

This is especially true as the government, through Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), already has a framework in place –Islamic Digital Economy (IDE) Mi’yar. The framework is meant to assist Islamic digital players to scale and find demand for their products/ services.

For more about fintech in Malaysia, please read the the e27 Malaysia Fintech Report 2019.

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GuardRails, a SaaS-based software security provider, announces that it has raised S$1 million (US$734,000) in a seed financing round led by Cocoon Capital, Singapore-based early-stage venture capital firm.

With the funds from the seed investment, GuardRails said it plans on scaling their team of software engineers, security experts as well as sales and customer success representatives. GuardRails is also adding support for even more programming languages, development platforms, and security testing technologies to allow it to realise their vision of making application security available to all.

GuardRails aims to help developers find, fix, and prevent security vulnerabilities in real-time at a claimed low cost. It was founded by Stefan Streichsbier, a renowned Austrian security expert who co-authored the first certifiable security standard in the European Union for web application security.

“Currently, companies need a small army to deploy and integrate security solutions tightly into the development workflows, after which they find heaps of cryptic vulnerabilities without any useful information on how to fix them. This is something not many companies, especially small businesses, can afford to do,” said Streichsbier, founder and CEO of GuardRails.

Also Read: ICE71 announces top ten cybersecurity startups from second batch

According to the Singapore Threat Report by US security firm Carbon Black, 96 per cent of organisations in Singapore have had at least one breach in the past 12 months due to external cyber-attacks. It was also found that 43 per cent of online attacks are now aimed at small businesses, where 60 per cent go out of business within six months of being victimised.

These breaches, the report informed, not only threaten the operations of critical infrastructure, but ultimately impact the lives of ordinary people as well, impacting industries in healthcare, education, and transport to name a few.

In May 2019, GuardRails graduated from ICE71 Accelerate and said that it has been trusted by almost 800 development teams across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.

DevSecOps, development, security, and operations, is the philosophy of integrating security practices within the DevOps process.

To date, GuardRails has added support for 10 programming languages and most recently launched support for GitLab in addition to GitHub. GuardRails has also been made available for on-premise deployments and is adding support for BitBucket by the end of the month.

Also Read: Cybersecurity in the age of information warfare and IoT

“GuardRails enforces software for enterprises down to the smallest SMEs. The interconnected, real-time nature of modern societies requires securing even the smallest software nugget. We have been incredibly impressed by the quality and agility of the GuardRails team and are truly excited to join their journey,” said Will Klippgen, Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital, who recently joined GuardRail’s board of directors.
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Today I aim to reveal the reasons that help startups and enterprises to succeed. I’ve gone through several resources from the Internet i.e entrepreneur.com, forbes.com, and also coordinated with many business influencers via Instagram and other platforms.

But, none of them gave me a satisfying answer. In the end, I came across TedTalks, particularly the “Single biggest reason why start-ups succeed | Bill Gross”. And I got an actual answer to what I was looking for.

The reason why I am sharing this with you is that I think many business people who want to start their own business or have already started a business are also trying to find the actual answer to this query but fail to reach any conclusion, just as I did previously.

I faced the same issue and now I’ve got the answer that you are looking for and I am sure after reading this you will get a pretty good idea.

Here is the TedTalks video that provided me with the answer to my questions.

Bill Gross is an entrepreneur and founder of Idealab. He is an analysis tech tycoon and curious individual who knows how businesses succeed in the market and where they could fail. He has analysed a ton of companies and collected abundant data that he showed and explained in his TedTalks.

Further, I also have some amazing tips and advice i.e what other things might help you to succeed in your business. As this is an entrepreneur regarding article, I have included a bonus topic of Uber incubator program as well in the end.

Here I have shared with you one of the most interesting facts which surprise me and Bill Gross i.e what factors affecting the most, help companies to succeed. I’ve also shared my thoughts that can help companies to succeed.

Because new innovations, new ideas, and a new way of business changes the concerning lives and the world for good. Think of Uber for instance. How they succeeded and how they changed the entire world with their passenger transport service.

But here is a question for everyone.

Why companies with a great idea can also meet with failure?

In my previous experience, I have seen many startups with great ideas, great execution meeting failure. I became curious to figure out why this happens with high potential startups?

I decided to find out what factors matter the most and create a systematic approach that startups need to integrate in their working.

This TedTalk gave me what I needed. It answered the same questions that I think every entrepreneur has, right!!

So, here are the five most important factors that account for a company’s success or failure.

1.Idea.

Ideas are one of them, if not the most critical part of the business. If you don’t have an idea, what will your business do? Ideas don’t just mean innovation; ideas mean what you want to accomplish with your business.

Here are my tips

1. If you don’t have an idea for your business. Take a real-world problem i.e what issue do most people suffer from, and try to provide a solution for that. Confusing, right!! Let’s take the example of Uber.

Uber found a real-world problem i.e. daily commute and provided a unique solution for that.

But, is a good idea enough for a successful business?

No.

There’s where the second factor comes to picture.

2. Team

Execution, adaptability, and planning of the idea matter more than the idea itself.

Here are my tips on how you can execute your idea well. Make the system decentralized. Handle everything in little pieces and then execute the complete plan from the centre. Confused? Let’s take the example of Alibaba.

One of the most important factors for the success of Alibaba is that they made their system decentralized. They handled the selling system locally, country wise, and then at the end report and analyse from the central headquarters in china.

I know your ideas may not need country-wise handling in the beginning. But, make sure you build a decentralized system because I firsthand witnessed an entrepreneur not able to handle the things when his business started expanding.

3. Business model

A perfect business model leads to lucrative revenue from multiple sources. But, what is a business model?. You have ideas, You have a team but don’t know how to execute those things then the idea and the team are valued zero. In a word, the business model is the plan to perfectly execute ideas.

My tip here is to try and figure out every aspect where you can expand your business. Here you have to try all possible ways to run a business and check whether it helps to succeed your startup. Let’s take the example of Grofers.

Grofers wanted to enter into a very competitive Marketplace. So they looked for a marketplace that had least competition (comparatively), hence, Grocery. They took advantage of the consistent demand and less competition that this marketplace offered.

4. Funding

Sometimes companies receive a massive amount of funding and sometimes they run on fumes. So, the next step is for you to figure out the importance of healthy funding.

My tip here is that before pitching for funding, you should secure your ideas by making the investors sign an NDA and other relevant documents. It has happened more often that an entrepreneur with a great idea pitched to several investors and within a few months that same idea is leaked as clone solution.

Your idea gets stolen and you can’t do anything about it. Hence before pitching your ideas, you must secure it by getting them to sign necessary documents.

5. Timing

It means you better not be early with your solution when the world is not ready for it OR be late when already several cheap clone solutions are available to the world. Perfect timing is very important i.e when people facing a problem are in dire need, at that time your product or solution should be their lifesaver.

Uber and Grofers are the best examples of this. People don’t want to stand on the curb and waste time waiting for a vacant taxi. Uber saw this problem and brought the needed solution at the exact time. Same goes for Grofers. People now don’t want to go to the store to buy their daily groceries. Grofers saw the problem and provided the right solution at the right time. They commit to delivery within 15 mins.

My tip here is to provide an on-demand solution of your business and integrate technology with it. Let me explain in broad terms.

What Uber and Grofers have done? They realized the real-world problem of travelling and shopping grocery. They took advantage of the digital world. Through a digitalized system, they provide a better app solution.

Because the internet and mobile have already become an integral part of the lives of people.People spend nearly 4 hours on an average on their mobiles. So why not take advantage of this habit of the users?

With a digital system, you reduce cost and increase efficiency. All you need to build is a perfect application. If you want to know how much does it cost to make an application then you can find your answer from one single guide. You don’t have to look everywhere.

But now my question is which is the most important factor among these five.

1. Here is an analysis of the Top 5 companies who succeeded. (Ranking factor from 1 to 10)

2. Here is an analysis of Top 5  companies who have faced failure. (Ranking factor from 1 to 10)

3. Here is an analysis of Top 5 giant companies who succeeded. (Ranking factor from 1 to 10)

4. Here is an analysis of Top 5 giant companies who have faced failure. (Ranking factor from 1 to 10)

From analysing 200+ companies, we concluded the following importance for the mentioned factor

When I got this report, I was surprised to see that ideas which are a strong pillar for any business is not the most important factor, rather the timing and team execution are. Then after deep thinking, I realized that this report is 100% correct.

Summing it up

Today most of the people who exceed in the market don’t have a great college degree, high certification, don’t even have enough money whey they start and don’t have enough experience to run business.

Still, they thrive and succeed because of the perfect timing and execution of the idea. Take the example of Alibaba, Uber, Grofers, Tiktok and many more. They are all the top guns in their industry now, because of the accurate timing and perfect execution.

You should focus more on a real-world problem, find the right solution, launch it at the perfect timing, and make good money doing so.

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According to a Harvard Business Review report, 92 per cent of respondents reported an increase in the pace of their investments in big data; 88 per cent said their organisations faced greater pressure to invest in big data; and 55 per cent reported that their investments in big data had exceeded US$50 million—up from US$40 million the previous year. 

But data analytics, being the dynamic science that it is, is constantly in a state of flux. As corporations continue to pump money into analytics to fuel their digital transformations, small business owners must pay attention to new best practices and trends to achieve their business goals in the months and years to come. 

In an effort to help you stay ahead of the curve, here’s a list of DataVLT’s own top data analytics trends and predictions to watch out for in 2020.

Trends that will shape data analytics in 2020

1. Merging of IoT and analytics

When people talk about the Internet of Things (IoT), the focus tends to be on the number and range of devices that are and will be connected to the Internet, and for a good reason. It’s estimated that there will be close to 30.73 billion IoT connected devices by 2020, ranging from kitchen toasters, smart cars, and thermostats to video doorbells, refrigerators, wireless speakers, and so on.

We predict that IoT will eventually evolve from being a hardware challenge into a data one, with each IoT-enabled device generating data that should be analysed and acted upon to be of any value. This brings data analytics into the picture, and it’s a relationship that will only get deeper as IoT devices become more commonplace. 

Also Read: Making it rain with data analytics

As a Seagate and IDC report on digitisation notes, “In 2025, each connected person will have at least one data interaction every 18 seconds. Many of these interactions are because of the billions of IoT devices connected across the globe, which are expected to create over 90ZB of data in 2025.”

2. Conversational analytics and natural language processing

A Gartner report on data analytics trends published earlier this year predicts conversational analytics and Natural Language Processing (NLP) will transform data analytics shortly, adding that 50 per cent of analytical queries will be generated via search, voice, or NLP by 2020. 

Gartner notes that the rise of NLP means that program queries no longer have to be programmed into an analytics tool, which then opens the floodgates for new classes of users, such as office workers and support staff, to take advantage of analytics software. 

In other words, NLP and conversational analytics make data analysis more approachable, especially for users who are still building their data literacy. 

3. Data security and privacy 

The Cambridge Analytica data scandal of 2018 brought the issue of personal data collected under the spotlight, revealing the frightening effect of exploiting user data to influence people’s behaviours. In the case of Cambridge Analytica, Facebook data was mined and used without authorisation to build software that predicted and influenced voters during the 2016 US Presidential Election.

The scandal, however, is by no means the only instance of a high-profile data breach. Other organisations such as Yahoo, Sony, Equifax, Uber, and JP Morgan Chase have been hit by cybersecurity attacks that compromised the real names, email addresses, and telephone numbers of millions of users. 

It’s no surprise, then, that consumers and consumer protection groups are pushing for legislation to force businesses to disclose what data they collect from people and what they do with that information. 

4. Rise of data-as-a-Service (DaaS) 

In 2017, IDC predicted that 90 per cent of large enterprises would generate revenue from Data as a Service (DaaS) in 2020, up from 50 per cent that year. DaaS refers to the purchase, sale, or trade of machine-readable data, metrics, and insights in exchange for something of value between two or more organisations. 

As cloud computing technology continues to mature, enterprises can expect to gain better access to more extensive and richer caches of digital files over the Internet. The globalisation of DaaS could also facilitate faster and more efficient exchanges of information, particularly best practices and research data, in sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications, retail, and transportation among many others. 

5. Further specialisation of job roles in Data Science

As data analytics is becoming mission-critical to more and more organisations, the demand for data scientists has also increased with each passing year. In 2020, however, we expect roles in the field of data science to continue to branch off into different specialisations—even more than the ones we’re already seeing today. 

In the past, the title data scientist was broad and encompassed pretty much everything involving data, from data capturing and KPI measurement to data insights and forecasting.

Today, however, the job description has diversified into specific roles, including data analyst, business intelligence analyst, data engineer, data architect and more. There is also plenty of opportunities, even for non-STEM members with no programming background to enter the field. 

Growing specialisations and job complexity are due to the sector’s rapid growth. Worldwide revenue for big data and business analytics (BDA) solutions are predicted to reach US$189.1 billion by the end of this year, exhibiting a 12% increase over 2018. Experts forecast the sector will maintain this pace throughout 2022 with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.2 per cent. 

6. Augmented analytics

Augmented analytics is poised to be one of the next big things in big data and analytics. Research by MarketsandMarkets valued the augmented analytics market at US$8.4 billion in 2018. This market is estimated to grow to US$22.4 billion by 2025, according to Grand View Research.

Also Read: How much AI talent do we have in Asia Pacific? Here is a look at the data and trends

Augmented analytics uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to augment how analytics is developed, consumed, and shared. The most obvious benefit of augmented analytics is its ability to automate many analytics tasks, such as data preparation, analysis, and creation of accurate models.

7. Continuous confidence in cloud computing

The cloud will continue to come of age in 2020. According to IDC, spending on cloud IT infrastructure will reach $82.9 billion in 2022, accounting for 56.0 per cent of all software, services and technology spending in the same period. 

Meanwhile, in a recent report, Gartner is placing its bets on distributed cloud technology, which distributes public cloud services to data centres across different geographic locations, without losing control over the infrastructure. The transition from centralised public cloud to distributed cloud is seen as a turning point in cloud computing as it solves nagging problems such as latency and data sovereignty. 

8. Increased regulations

Laws such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the highly publicised California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) represent a turning point in data privacy regulations. While 2018 was the year of GDPR, we predict that 2020, which is when the CCPA takes effect, will bring renewed attention to the issue of data protection. 

Like the GDPR, the CCPA’s scope does not depend on where a company’s location, but on the consumer’s data that it stores. That means that a website hosted in Sydney must comply with CCPA if it collects and/or sells the personal data of any California resident. And while the law is state-based, CCPA is predicted to influence the rest of the US as well as the world due to the clamour for better data privacy laws. To date, more than a hundred countries have some form of data regulations, and we believe this number will continue to go up in the years to come. 

9. AI continues to make data analytics even more accessible

The continued evolution of AI and machine learning algorithms will pave the way for further automation and optimisation of data analytics processes. This, in turn, will provide organisations with more accurate business insights to act upon. 

Apart from augmented analytics, AI is bringing predictive analytics into the spotlight, allowing organisations to explore their historical data at a deeper level using data mining, statistics, modelling, and machine learning. While this type of advanced analytics is far from new, the surge in organisations using platforms like Azure, which houses powerful and scalable enterprise predictive analytics resources, will drive investment in machine learning by up to US$12.4 billion by 2022.

Data analytics is in constant motion

Data analytics is becoming the norm but is also evolving at a rapid speed. Enterprises that are ahead of the curve are leveraging analytics to make informed decisions on subjective strategies involving recruitment, marketing, and branding.

On the other hand, objective decisions involving inventory, supply chains, and fraud and risk detection among others, are based on increasingly complex data, which help determine statistical probabilities and predictions with better accuracy than ever.

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Known to be Singapore’s largest shipping company, Eastern Pacific Shipping (EPS), has announced a partnership with early-stage investor and accelerator Techstars to launch the dedicated global maritime accelerator called the Eastern Pacific Accelerator powered by Techstars.

Eastern Pacific Accelerator powered by Techstars also announces its first class of nine startups, selected from hundreds of worldwide applicants. The class of startups was selected with consideration and input from EPS’ Operations, Marine Technical, Commercial, IT, Fleet Personnel, and Management teams, all who would work closely with each startup to test their technologies and accelerate their businesses.

The Eastern Pacific Accelerator powered by Techstars aims to bring digital, technology-led solutions to problems faced by the shipping and maritime industry. From November 2019, the nine startups will go through a three-month programme of research and development, mentorship, and collaboration at EPS headquarters in Singapore.

The nine startups are from Singapore, Denmark, the UK, and the US. One of the startups, C-Log has recently moved its global headquarters to Singapore, while US-based Volteo has spun-off Volteo Maritime as a Singapore company.

Nautilus Labs is also establishing a permanent office in Singapore while keeping its headquarters in New York City.

Also Read: Seed-stage accelerator Techstars raises US$42M funding; plans Southeast Asia expansion

Gil Ofer, the Head of Open Innovation at Eastern Pacific Shipping said, “We see a need for technology to propel the maritime industry forward, especially with a rapidly digitalising society and an increase in global trade. That means the shipping industry needs to innovate to solve problems such as fuel consumption, operational efficiency, fleet performance, and improving life-at-sea for seafarers – and we are doing just that with the Eastern Pacific Accelerator powered by Techstars.”

“EPS can provide access to a deep network of industry players, real-world data, and operational insights from our experienced maritime experts that will accelerate the development of their products,” Ofer continued.

The world’s shipping and maritime sector continue to grow, accounting for around 90 per cent of all goods moved globally, spanning over 50,000 vessels and over a million seafarers, according to the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS). The United Nations Conference of Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD), meanwhile, estimates that volumes of global seaborne trade will grow by 3.8 per cent between 2018 and 2023.

Despite the predicted growth, the industry remains challenged with a number of critical issues that can be solved with crucially-proven innovation to sustain its competitiveness and growth.

Claus Nehmzow, Chief Innovation Officer at Eastern Pacific Shipping commented, “Issues such as sustainability, reducing emissions, and seafarer’s mental and physical wellbeing can no longer take a wait-and-see approach. The goal is to address these issues in the maritime sector today through the accelerator and to inspire the industry to take a technology-first approach to solve problems.”

Also Read: Maritime tech startup Claritecs raised US$600K pre-Series A funding from INNOPORT

During the three-month programme, the startups will receive hands-on mentorship from industry experts, access to EPS’ operational data, and the opportunity to deploy their technology on EPS’s diverse fleet of over 150 vessels. The programme will also provide the founders with access to Techstars’ network of mentors, investors, and partners.

In February 2020, the accelerator will culminate in a Demo Day where the founders will pitch to an audience of top investors, multinationals, government partners and other ecosystem players.
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Tokocrypto, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, announces that it has become a government-approved platform for the trading of cryptocurrency assets in Indonesia. On February 15, 2019, Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (BAPPEBTI) announced that Tokocrypto is the only officially-recognized cryptocurrency exchanges in the country.

The approval, the company noted, allows traders to eliminate legal concerns, enabling them to buy and sell cryptocurrency assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum on the platform with more confidence and certainty.

Based on a report by Google and Temasek, Indonesia’s digital economy is projected to quadruple from US$40 billion in 2019 to US$133 billion by 2025.

Tokocrypto was founded in Indonesia in 2017 by a Singaporean entrepreneur, Pang Xue Kai, who is also a governing council member in the Singapore Chamber of Commerce Indonesia. Year-to-date since 2018, it has facilitated more than USD 250 million in cryptocurrency assets.

“Being ​the first cryptocurrency exchange to be registered with Indonesian regulators to operate legally in the country ​is a huge milestone for Tokocrypto as it brings us one step closer to being the leading cryptocurrency exchange platform in Southeast Asia,” Pang said

Also Read: Bitkub, Bitcoin and Bangkok: Thailand’s cryptocurrency exchange raises pre-series A round

​BAPPEBTI is the regulatory body in Indonesia overseeing crypto-asset trading. They have issued two regulations regarding crypto-assets trading in Indonesia, namely No. 5 of 2019 in February 2019 and No. 9 of 2019 in July 2019, in which Indonesian has to comply with these two regulations to be able to register with BAPPEBTI for licensing.

“We will also continue our efforts in engaging the cryptocurrency community across Southeast Asia as the leading cryptocurrency exchange platform in the region. With the high potential of cryptocurrency in the region in terms of investments and transactions, we are confident that we are the pre-eminent gateway for traders and consumers alike to seize opportunities as they arise,” said Pang.

Following the registration, Tokocrypto said that it is also working closely with other government agencies in Southeast Asia to seek licensing and collaboration opportunities.
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A great leader doesn’t have to do everything. Go back and read that again. You can read it again if you need to, but don’t keep going until you really get the fact that as the leader, it is not your responsibility to do everything in the workplace.

It’s hard to give up control but you’ll quickly find that delegating certain tasks out to others not only frees you up to be more productive on more important tasks, it’s also good for your mental health.

Here are some good ways to start delegating tasks out to free yourself up more.

1. The power of priorities

Wouldn’t it be amazing to only have to focus on one project at work? Most of us can only dream of such a scenario, so it’s vital that you learn to prioritize.

Get an idea of what tasks are most important down to the least pressing ones, then break each one down into the steps that will be required to get them done. You’ll find that there are a lot of small steps involved that you could delegate to someone else and allow you, as the leader, to focus more on the big picture.

2. Leaders know who follows them

The worst thing a leader can do is to put somebody in charge of a task that is the total opposite of their skill set. If you have a member of your team that isn’t great at talking to people on the phone, don’t give him or her a list of phone calls that need to be made.

Also Read: Singapore to send delegation of 11 startups to TiEcon 2017 to strengthen ties with Silicon Valley

If you’ve got somebody who struggles with grammar, maybe they shouldn’t handle all the electronic communication on a project. Know who is following you and assign tasks based on what they do well. Great leaders set their people up to succeed.

3. Follow up to follow through

As the leader of any team, ultimately the results are your responsibility. The people who lead you aren’t interested in what the people you’ve delegated tasks to didn’t get done; they’re going to ask you why they’re not complete. You can delegate tasks out but it’s important to stay informed and be prepared to help during the process.

You don’t have to do it all in the workplace. Find a happy medium between producing results and overworking yourself.

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Mastercard today revealed the third edition of its Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs, celebrating the markets where women entrepreneurs are most likely to thrive while sounding the alarm that there are still significant inequalities that hold us all back. New Zealand emerged as the top-ranked market in the Asia Pacific region, and second in the world behind only the United States, for its conduciveness to women’s entrepreneurship.

Based on publicly available data from international organizations including the International Labor Organization, UNESCO and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the global Index tracks the progress and achievement of women entrepreneurs and business owners in 58 societies (representing nearly 80% of the world’s female labor force) across three components: (i) Women’s Advancement Outcomes, (ii) Knowledge Assets & Financial Access, and (iii) Supporting Entrepreneurial Factors. The results reaffirmed that women are able to make further business inroads and have higher labor force participation rates in open and vibrant markets like New Zealand, Singapore, and Australia, where the support for SMEs and ease of doing business are high.

Women are also able to draw from enabling resources, including access to capital, financial services, and academic programs. Typically, these markets are also driven by social norms that deeply encourage and promote innovation,
creativity, risk‐taking, and success through personal perseverance, and grant women fair opportunities to rise as business leaders, gain tertiary education and to be perceived and accepted as successful entrepreneurs. Out of the 20 highest-ranking markets globally, 80% are high-income economies.

While US, New Zealand and Canada rule the top slots in most favourable markets for women entrepreneurs, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong are not too far behind in the top 20. Of the 58 markets included in the Index, eight moved up by more than five ranks year-on-year. Asia Pacific’s fast-rising markets included Indonesia (+13), Taiwan (China) (+9) and Thailand (+5) all saw significant jumps in their rankings.

On the other end of the spectrum, for markets at the lower end of the Index, women tend to be held back by lack of opportunities to assume higher-level economic roles, are marginalized by poor support for SMEs, low financial inclusion, poor opportunities for tertiary education and often restrictive and underdeveloped business and financial systems that make doing business difficult.

Also read: 8 things female entrepreneurs in Asia need to know according to Forbes 30 under 30 Michelle Yuan

Importantly, societal and cultural norms also discourage them from working, being ambitious, or assuming
leadership roles. “What is clear through this research is that gender inequality continues to persist across the world, although it manifests in different ways. It isn’t a developed or developing world problem alone. Even in markets with the most promising entrepreneurial conditions, women’s business ownership hasn’t reached its full potential. This marginalization hinders the empowerment of women socially, professionally, economically and politically – to the detriment of society as a whole,” said
Julienne Loh, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Partnerships, Asia Pacific, Mastercard.

Mastercard says it is committed to helping pave the way for the progress and prosperity of businesses owned by women
around the world. In Asia Pacific, Mastercard is cultivating entrepreneurs through programs like Start Path and Fintech Express. The company has provided financial literacy training to nearly 200,000 women across Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam, and offers grants to women to grow their businesses through the Mastercard Impact Fund.

In September 2019, Mastercard announced that it is working with the apparel industry to financially empower tens
of millions of garment factory workers around the world by digitizing wages. Furthermore, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth has helped to bring to life more than 750 financial inclusion programs across more than 80 countries to tackle income inequality challenges. Download the full Mastercard Index for Women Entrepreneurs 2019 report and infographic.

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Want to learn more about fintech in Malaysia? Read the e27 Malaysia Fintech Ecosystem Report 2019.

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“Building a global bank account is our number one value proposition. Even if you have local apps, for local payments, it does not allow you to use them globally,” says Revolut CEO Nikolay Storonsky during an interview with e27 when asked about competition from local payment apps in Singapore.

On October 24, Revolut the UK headquartered fintech company — which offers fee-free currency exchange, commission-free stock trading, cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer payments– made its official entry into the Asian waters by launching into the Singaporean market.

According to the CEO, the firm aims to become a one-stop solution for financial services, starting with its ongoing plans to kick start commission-free trading for stocks via its platform in Singapore which is currently not available in the region but has already been seen as a feature in the UK.

While local companies such as Nium offer services like instant money transfers and have been in the Asian market for longer, Storonsky stresses that even though they do it, they do not do it for free, which come across as a valid argument and could be one of the reasons why Revolut’s perks could be more attractive to the mass.

The relatively young fintech company has already managed to acquire over seven million accounts and an average of 3.7 million active users each month. Along with more than 30,000 customers in Singapore after only a year of beta testing in Singapore, the company is confident that local users will see a unique value in its vision of moving money freely around the world -“as easy as sending an SMS”.

“One of the reasons why we picked Singapore as a base for the Asian expansion is because of the rather transparent regulations to get licenses. However, in the majority of the countries, regulations are more or less the same for crypto or remittance offerings. Certain local laws might be different, but overall, the infrastructure to implement these regulations is very similar in every single country,” explains Storonsky on how different country regulations might affect Revolut’s remittance and crypto offerings.

However, despite its ambition, various reports stated that Revolut has withdrawn from the digital banking licensing race, along with Nium and Transferwise due to high capital requirement.

Also Read: Revolut arrives in Singapore after a year of beta testing, providing more overseas money transfer option

Big plans for Asia

For foreign companies entering a new, culturally oriented market such as Asia, marketing is often seen as one of the greatest challenges.

When being asked if Revolut has any plan to localise its awareness campaigns, Storonsky mentions that the company is more positioned towards building a strong local leadership team and products teams in different locations, that will allow it to tweak and localise the product. The principle, however, will remain the same: To build a powerful platform that makes it easy to move money around the world in a seamless manner.

Storonsky also admits that one of the key challenges for the company has been “hiring”. To which Jakub Zakrzewski, Head of APAC at Revolut, added that “We see that Singapore has a great pool of local talent. However, in Singapore, at the beginning of their career, many people want to go into banking, consulting, or work for big companies because it offers a lower risk and is considered as a safer option. However, we see that the trend is shifting. More and more people are getting into the tech industry, knowing that this is the industry of the future. While it is not simply about having a big name on the CV, Revolut has already managed to build a reputation for itself, and it is already a brand that can compete with all the other bigger prestigious brands.”

Even though hiring might have been a challenge for the company, the team has already multiplied considerably from 50 people from two years ago in the London office to 500 and 1,500 globally.

Being currently present in the Asian frontier, Storonsky also said that Revolut aims to be in almost every country in Asia within five years.

That being said, the company plans to launch in Japan early next year, with Hong Kong and New Zealand subsequently. It is also looking to execute live beta testing plans in Australia.

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Image Credit: Revolut

 

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