Along with the impact of COVID-19 causing social distancing globally, the booming of the e-commerce market seemingly dives the rapid adoption of online payment.

The industry faced rapid-fire consolidation, rising omni-channel commerce, and a wave of new competitors, particularly IT companies. In which, cash might be no longer the standard method for purchasing activities in favour of e-payment. We will show you the e-payment trends, which will build its empire in Asia in the next five years.

2019 had witnessed the mighty domination of Tech titans in several market industries. Additionally, the penetration of tech companies in the payment and e-commerce market causing aggressive competition among players.

Consequently, both startups and giants across the ecosystem have to attempt solutions and strategies to fight.

On the other hand, the healthcare crisis (i.e coronavirus) spread a gloomy colour in the picture of the vulnerable economy in Asia.

In an optimistic perspective, it might make an enormous transformation in purchasing behaviour in favour of online channels. Asians currently prefer automatic payment more than ever, which reduce the rapid spread of this disease through direct communication.

We draw four expected transitions that dominate the Asia payment market in the next five years, including POS financing, contactless payment, real-time payment, and autonomous checkout.

E-commerce giants leverage POS financing

Western countries have been entering the mature phase of POS financing sectors, which their citizens become familiar with noncredit finance in purchasing. Especially for POS lending, Western customers currently have the chance to request the instalment loans for their order.

This type of consumer finance is constantly growing along with technological advance as well as the booming of the fintech industry.

While Visa and Mastercard keep its presence, the integration of several digital upstarts and retailers lights up the market. In which, Paypal Credit and Affirm tend to be two particular examples.

On the other hand, major areas in Asia remains underdeveloped in POS financing. The season for this situation related to roundly 43 per cent of ASEAN fintech focuses on digital payment and e-wallet, while only 8 per cent go with POS lending.

However, the Asia market will see the dramatic transformation in 2020 when e-commerce giants expectedly take on space.

In Q1, 2020, Shoppe and Lazada (owned by Alibaba) have acquired digital banking licenses to start offering digital lending across SE Asia. Alternatively, some other startups choose to form a partnership with banks and fintech firms to share the POS financing risk to its provider.

Also read: 4 ways digital payments are helping businesses thrive amid a global recession

With the growth of alternative credit purchasing, the e-commerce market in SE Asia is anticipated to be marvellous growth in the next five year. S&P Global research predicts that ASEAN 6 will significantly increase by nearly 90 per cent of online sale from 2019 to 2022, which expectedly reach America data.

This trend is seemingly similar to the strategy of Amazon, which is e-commerce giants in the US but less presence in POS financing. Amazon decided to collaborate with Zip (Australia) and Paidy (Japan) to offering experimental POS financing in this market before spreading it to the whole system.

Contactless payment will be the mainstreams but not in 2020

Obviously, Asia Pacific has more potential to pursue carless payment than any other areas due to the highest ratio of smartphone owners. The rapid growth of mobile payment foresees the future of ubiquitous contactless payment in the next five years.

Not only for users, but government systems also get benefit in adopting cashless since it promises the more effective of managing monetary policies.

As powerful support from regulatory sectors, mobile payment will draw the perspective of pure cashless across Asia. According to Global payment submit, regulatory push promises to grow the mobile payment market by about US$72 billion until 2021. Besides, the threat of spreading COVID-19 through contacting with surface encourages the use of contactless payment.

However, contactless payment cannot be ubiquitous in the early of this decade despite lots of effort from several sectors. Why? The main reason is the lacks of vehicles to show customers where they can find the merchants accepting contactless payment. This uncertainty let consumers carry another payment method in checkout.

On the other hand, consumers still do not have a sensible motivation in using contactless payment. They concern more on securities and data privacy rather than the speedy payment. In fact, the technological flaws currently keep the users far from completely adopting contactless payment.

Real-time payment in B2B market

Real-time payment (RTP) scheme might not be a novel concept these days. The presence of RTP or fast-payment was initially in South Korea 2001, along with the e-banking system’s foundation here. Currently, the majority of RTP in the market only supports to low-value transactions, made from individuals.

In fact, according to PromptPay, an RTP platform in Thailand claimed that roundly 85 per cent of its transactions was less than US$200. Meanwhile, 80 per cent of RTP transactions in India reported to below US$20.

In B2B business, the massive payment amount induces substantial risk for both payers and receivers, which require a series of valid documents. This situation has a sign to switch in 2020 when the electronic signature is gradually becoming more popular.

In 2019, Giants card networks like Mastercard and VISA officially launching their RTP services across space in both B2B segments for the UK market. Particularly, Mastercard has committed to offers a set of RTP technologies globally, including the Asia Pacific.

It will provide payment application APIs, allow local bank apps becoming RTP apps without relying on the third-party apps. Especially, it can process a large amount of payment on a real-time basis.

From 2020 to 2025, several Asia countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, are expected to finalise their regulation regarding fast payment in favour of supporting B2B transactions. In which, credit intuitions can start developing RTP platform for B2B sector.

Growing autonomous checkout in stores or groceries

Recently several companies employ computer vision, sensors, and other tracking technologies for supporting autonomous checkout for groceries, which allow customers to pick items and pay without stopping in front of cashiers. Additionally, retailers also deter the threat of product stolen by leveraging these technological advances.

Likely to card payment methods, autonomous checkout will reduce both time and effort by accepting payment automatically after consumer identify themselves via a profile. In a business perspective, companies might take tremendous advantage from detail payment information, that consumers need to complete and save their profile before entering a store.

In Asia, a survey done by 5,000 consumers found that roundly 45 per cent of respondents are willing to switch from traditional in-store purchase to automation payment. That number for urban. That numbers for urban citizens and millennials are 55% and 58%, respectively. Additionally, that number in India (79 per cent) and China (85 per cent) are proved the dramatic adoption of autonomous checkout in these regions.

In 2020, Asia Pacific is projected to increase by 15 per cent at the CAGR of self-checkout systems among convenience stores. In which, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in autonomous checkout is claimed to drive the market.

In April 2019, Seikatsu Saika had trialled a novel AI-based self-checkout system in one store in Tokyo. Currently, this technology has started to massive apply in more store chains.

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Today’s technology is immensely geared up to help small and medium-sized businesses succeed. There has been a radical change in the way things have been functioning. With the onset of cloud technology, a lot of conventions have been replaced with contemporary tools and techniques.

One such profound contribution is from the SaaS sector. Eliminating the need for businesses to develop and maintain a software application for their distinct purposes, these Software-as-a-Service companies offer their applications for a fixed price or subscription plans. This allows businesses of all sizes to tailor the application to their requirements and make the most out of the tool.

The other side

If you’ve used tools such as Dropbox, Salesforce, Hubspot, Google Tools and more, you are already familiar with the SaaS technology. And if you’re someone who has identified a crucial business potential in this sector and looking to launch a reliable SaaS product, there are a few things you should consider first.

While statistics would reveal and shed light on the most successful SaaS service providers and that it is a billion-dollar market, you should also look at the other side of the spectrum. For every successful SaaS company, there are a lot of companies that experience a very slow growth rate.

At this point, it is important to understand a term called churn rate, which indicates the number of subscriptions that are terminated over a period of time. Companies that fail have a churn rate higher than their growth rate.

Also Read: Taiwanese SaaS startup mlytics ensures your website never faces internet outage due to cloud failure

To throw some more light on this, understand that:

• Over two-thirds of the SaaS companies in the market have reportedly experienced a churn rate of five per cent (or more)
• Even 34 per cent of the companies with high growth rates have experienced a churn rate of over 10 per cent
• The ideal churn rate for a company is anywhere between five and seven per cent annually

The primary inference here is that even the best SaaS providers would lose subscribers every month. This could be because of competition, redundant features, pricing and more.

However, there is a stark difference between losing a customer and not gaining one at all. That is where most newer SaaS companies mainly fumble. As we mentioned, the market is cluttered with SaaS products with each offering attractive pricing plans and features.

So, in this clutter, how do you find out if there’s space for your SaaS product?

How do you know if the product you roll out would have takers?

Also Read: Customer churn analysis: How can startups get it right?

Do the features you have in mind add any value to your target audience or should you fill the gap between what they require and what you offer?

To answer these questions, you should test the water before you dive in. That’s why we firmly believe in rolling out an MVP for your SaaS products to gauge its stand in the market.

This is a litmus test your product would go through and the results would enlighten you on the actions you should take in developing a full-fledged SaaS product.

So, gear up to find out the fundamentals of building a SaaS MVP

The fundamentals of building a SaaS MVP

One of the primary reasons why certain SaaS companies fail is because they don’t think from a customer’s perspective. When a founder has an idea, the immediate stage is an assessment of the market, competitor analysis, probable valuation, and product development.

Little or no attention is paid to understanding what the target audience wants, the problems users face, whether the existing solutions resolve concerns and more. Even user persona assessment is vague, where the focus is mainly on getting the product out.

This haste will only backfire as you do not just have a half-baked product but an idea. One of the companies that took the ideal approach is Buffer, the popular automation app for social media.

Also Read: Five cornerstones to SaaS startup capital efficiency

When the idea happened, an MVP was created with a flow and tested. When it failed, the founder collected the email addresses of his subscribers and started talking to the users.

As he spoke more, he understood what features worked and what did not, the areas that required more attention and more. It was after all this that the product was finally rolled out.

Product features

Talking to your initial subscribers (testers and first circle contacts) would give you immense insights into what the market requires in terms of a new SaaS product. You have a clearer idea about your product and how it would look and function. You might also realise that the idea in mind would no longer make sense as the demand is completely different.

Once you have the ideas and points in mind, the approach now is to decide on the features that your product would offer. This depends on your product’s market, niche, persona and all the insights you have gathered.

If it is a CRM, you would understand that a pain point is segregating contacts for targeted campaigns and more such insights. Coming up with a product roadmap is ideal to get your features organised for your MVP.

Doing so will not just give you clarity on the functionality and efficiency of your MVP but help you have better control of its development and progress at any given instance of time.

Also Read: Golden Gate Ventures, Modalku invest in Indonesian accounting SaaS startup Paper.id, targeting SME’s bookkeeping digitisation

Develop the core feature first

“Feature creep” is a term that refers to the tendency to add several features during the development stage. It happens when you are either aim for perfection or are insecure about your product. Regardless of what it is, this is lethal to your product, especially your MVP.

When you start building your MVP, it’s easy to get deviated and consistently add new features. But the whole point here is to test your idea and see if it works. It is not about showing off your product like in the case of a trialware. As you keep adding features, you tend to lose focus on the primary feature that defines your MVP or product.

It gets cluttered and what was supposed to be an elegant solution is now a tool of chaos. So, the ideal approach here is to first develop that core feature of your MVP and get it out of the way. To avoid feature creep, ensure that:

• The features you think of add value from a customer perspective
• A feature has a demand in the market or is requested by users on public platforms
• You distinguish between essential and good-to-have features
• You never deviate from the usability of your product

Launch The MVP

It is called an MVP for a reason. The whole point is to learn about your idea through the MVP. If you have developed your idea’s core feature, understand that it’s ready for launch. The problem with most founders and owners is that they tend to keep adding features or develop their MVPs even after the rollout. You do not have to focus on its development after you have launched your MVP.

Also Read: Shopmatic acquires SaaS multi-channel e-commerce platform CombineSell, rounding out its seller management offers

Now is the time to find ways to get more traction to your MVP because the more the testers, the more the feedback. And the feedback and criticism you get for your MVP will help you develop a better product.

So, some of the ways you could get traction are by engaging on some of these activities:

• Blogging about your industry or niche and conveying how your MVP is designed to fill the gaps
• Hosting or being part of a relevant podcast
• Personally reaching out to your target audience
• Using relevant social media to build a brand and generate buzz
• Making the most use of your first circle of contacts
• Reaching out to startup aggregators and more

Developing and launching an MVP is a crucial stage in running a business that defines your venture’s future. You could be patient and learn at this phase so your product is future-proof or you could be hasty and make a mistake that could cost you your business.

Groove, for instance, lost over US$50,000 because it ended up creating the wrong product. It kept adding new features and lost its way of delivering what was required the most by consumers. It took a lot of effort and insights from MVPs to launch the right product with the ideal messaging.

So, if you’re launching a SaaS product, get started with an MVP. 

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The last few weeks have felt a bit like a bad movie I’ve been forced to watch twice. As the CEO and Founder of a company that operates in both the East and West, I’ve watched the effects of COVID-19 spread across the world from Asia to North America.

When the outbreak first happened in Asia earlier this year, it was quite a shock to our offices in China, which have more than 500 employees based out of four cities.

Two months later, China is starting to resume a sense of normalcy and our China teams are back in the offices.

As European and North American companies continue to combat the effects of this pandemic, I thought it would be helpful to share my experience dealing with COVID-19 in China.

My hope is that sharing my learnings might benefit other senior leaders in the West as we go through this tough situation.

Dealing with the outbreak: Quickly mobilise and over-communicate

Initial news of the outbreak in China occurred during the Lunar New Year holiday, which meant many of our employees had travelled back to their hometowns and were spread out across the country.

Also Read: Is COVID-19 eating jobs away?

As soon as we learned about the virus, and its escalating infection rate, I knew we had to act fast.

I quickly mobilised a team of senior leaders who became the COVID task force. Establishing this team was crucial. During crises having a team whose responsibility is solely dedicated to quickly learning about the issue, making rapid decisions, and continuously monitoring the situation can help mitigate potential downfalls or losses.

The task force set up a war room where we would meet every day to discuss issues related to the pandemic. Whether it was the safety of our employees, actions we could take to help them, or ways to ensure continued service to our customers, we used the war room to develop immediate tactical plans that could quickly be implemented and executed with minimal resources.

To enhance communications between task force members we set up group chats on mobile messaging services such as WeChat, DingTalk and Microsoft Teams to ensure that all members could be in contact 24/7.

We also quickly realised how important over-communicating was to ease the stress and anxiety of employees. We luckily managed to track down everyone during the holiday period and ensured that they were safe.

Also Read: Why the e27 Webinar on how to manage a remote team is all you need right now

We immediately started sending out daily updates that provided employees the latest status on the virus in China and our action plans as a company. It was important to me that employees knew what we were doing as an organisation, this wasn’t the time to be silent or hide behind templated emails.

I wanted to be transparent and let employees know exactly what the task force was doing and the issues we were tackling to help ensure their safety and the longevity of the business.

It was evident early on that the employees appreciated the over-communication, it allowed them to feel confident in our ability to function during a high-stress time. Even in the aftermath of COVID-19, we have strived to keep strong communication with our employees as it’s enhanced our overall employee engagement.

Lockdown and travel restriction: Make the pivots work for you, not against you

As the outbreak continued to evolve after the holidays, China’s government issued a nation-wide lockdown. With little warning and time to prepare, we quickly had to pivot our entire business to a work-from-home (WFH) model. We knew that this would be an adjust for employees, so to ensure a smooth transition we made sure our WFH model encompassed two key elements:

Multiple communication touch points: To maintain strong communication and engagement during the WFH period, we leveraged video conferencing software such as Zoom, WeChat and DingTalk to keep the teams connected through daily huddles.

We encouraged employees to put their videos on at every meeting so they could see their colleagues and feel a sense of connection.

Also Read: A survivor’s guide for businesses dealing with COVID-19-led supply chain disruption

Humanistic management approach

Dealing with a country lockdown can be an emotionally and mentally taxing experience. I encouraged all of our senior leadership to focus on a humanistic approach to management. This meant taking extra effort and care to touch base with employees and see how they were dealing with the new WFH situation.

Our People and Culture team also played a huge role in getting employees settled, particularly those who were not able to travel back to their homes. They also did routine health checks with employees to ensure that anyone who did not feel well was provided the right health supports.

Shifting to a WFH model so quickly did not come without its challenges. We had technical issues that needed to be sorted, in order for the development teams to have remote VPN access, employee morale to manage with the mandated self-isolation and of course the key issue of keeping productivity high despite the disruption.

After a week of our new WFH model, I learned that our employees were extremely adaptable and resilient. They were making the pivot to the WFH lifestyle work, even though it required a few changes to their day-to-day. Instead of fighting against it, our entire management team was on board to make it a success.

We understood the pivot had pain points, but we were all willing to put in the work to make the new model a success. While productivity did decline in the first week, as expected, we did see a quick rebound as employees began to get comfortable with the new arrangement.

Also Read: Entrepreneurs share COVID-19’s impact on their businesses in a survey by Startup Genome

Weathering the storm: Innovate for the sake of public good

As it became more apparent that the lockdown was not going to be a short-term option, I began to think more critically about how PatSnap could help during the crisis. As a company that specialises in intelligence solutions that help companies learn everything they need to know about a competitor’s technology and innovation, I knew that we could play a key role in helping companies make a difference in combating COVID-19.

The senior leadership team and I made a strategic decision, to make all of PatSnap’s solutions free to anyone in China. We strongly believed that this was the right thing to do, and our way of helping the many people who were affected by the coronavirus.

Looking back, I am extremely proud of this decision, we choose innovation for good over profit, and saw immediate benefits by doing so. As a result of our free access, over 3,000 China patent office examiners were able to continue their patent examination work from the comfort of their homes.

We also had over 5,000 companies sign up for free access to our solutions, enabling them to continue collaborative work between their IP and R&D team.

Because of the positive experience and feedback we had in China, we have decided to do the same thing in the West and offer all of our PatSnap solutions for free to everyone around the world.

During tough times it is natural to think solely about what this means to your company’s bottom line or existence, but as leaders, it is important that we also seek to think about what good or value can we add to our customers’ or communities’ lives during times of hardship. Companies who do this and have a customer-first mindset, win in the long run.

Also Read: News Roundup: Singapore’s online hiring demand dips due to COVID-19; FOMO Pay forays into Malaysia

Post Lockdown: Keep the safety of employees a top priority

Once the government lifted the lockdown, we invited all our employees to return to their office. We knew that having employees return to work would require implementing strict measures to ensure the continued safety of our team. With our employees’ health and well-being in mind we implemented the following:

• Daily mask provisions for every employee. They were required to wear the mask while in the office.
• Mandatory sanitisation of hands upon entering the office.
• Continuous stringent cleaning and sanitisation of all work areas throughout the day. This also included daily deep cleans of the office in the evening.
• Mandatory temperature checks for all guest.

While some of these measures could be seen as extreme, we knew that our number one priority had to be the safety of our employees. We could not risk the lives of our employees by assuming that things could operate the way they did pre-COVID.

Present day: There is a rainbow after the storm

Currently, things in China are slowly starting to stabilise. Most companies are back to normal work schedules and citizens are starting to regain their lives. PatSnap China is on its way too, business is slowly starting to pick up and employees have adapted to the new way of life at PatSnap.

As I reflect on the last two months, I am reminded that there is always a rainbow after the storm, you just need to look hard enough. In our case, the pandemic allowed us to implement new processes and procedures that have become part of our company DNA.

We’ve increased communication and engagement with employees, enhanced our brand ethos with a dedication to innovation for good and successfully demonstrated that our business can strongly operate on a WFH model. These are all key things that COVID-19 forced me to learn.

And while the road to learn these things were tough, I am hopeful and excited for the future and know that PatSnap West will also come out of this pandemic stronger and better.

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Digital payments platform InstaReM launches cash payout option in the Philippines

InstaReM, the consumer and SME arm of global financial technology platform NIUM, announced today the launch of cash payout options for recipients in the Philippines. The service allows InstaReM users to pick up cash at approved outlets.

Though the country is starting to adopt cashless payments, the Philippines is still one of the world’s biggest remittance markets, with overseas Filipino workers transferring funds in the amount of US$33.5 billion back to their home country in 2019. With the introduction of cash payout service by InstaReM, consumers have the option of withdrawing the remittance in a manner that is convenient to them.

Starting from now, users in the Philippines are able to pick up cash at approved outlets, including Bayad Center and select marts. Users will need to present their identification card for verification and fill in a claims form for cash pickup at approved outlets, including branches of Cebuana, MLhuiller, Palawan, LBC, & BDO, amongst many others.

Users in the Philippines can also opt for direct transfer to a bank account, a prepaid card, or door-to-door delivery. These services apply for both real-time payments (within five minutes) or same-day payments.

Alibaba Cloud launches a US$30M global SME enablement programme to provide COVID-19 relief

Data intelligence arm of Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud, has announced the launch of a Global SME Enablement Program to provide cloud technology relief worth more than US$30 million to new and existing small and medium enterprise (SME) customers around the world and equip them with the solutions needed to maintain business continuity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also Read: Meet the 18 original founders of Alibaba

Under the programme, new SME customers worldwide can apply for the relief between now and June 22 to start using a portfolio of solutions from Alibaba Cloud.

The portfolio consists of a support package with 12 key products, including Elastic Compute Service (ECS), which powers cloud applications with low latency, and Object Storage Service (OSS), an encrypted service for data storage and backup in the cloud; as well as Alibaba Cloud Academy Courses.

Sistema Asia partners Russian state VC firm to spark technology collaboration

Singapore-based fund management company Sistema Asia has announced its official partnership with the Russian Venture Company (RVC), the state fund of funds and the institute for development of the Russian Federation venture market, through the signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

Under this two-year co-operation, RVC will collaborate with Sistema Asia in the commercialisation of advanced digital technology innovations.

The partnership will also leverage Sistema Asia’s Sales Jet platform to expand market opportunities for Russian technology companies in Singapore and Asia. Meanwhile, RVC will assist Singapore-based companies seeking partnership opportunities within Russia’s technology ecosystem.

Sales Jet is a business development platform for advanced technology companies from Russia and Singapore that are looking to expand their business across Asia. It was formed in 2019 by Sistema Asia, in partnership with Enterprise Singapore (Singapore’s chief state enterprise development agency), the Skolkovo Foundation (a prominent Russian technology innovation and commercialisation agency), and MTS (one of Russia’s largest telecommunications firms).

During Sales Jet’s three-month programme first started in 2019, companies receive expert insights on their target local markets. The companies also receive professional assistance on scaling their businesses, such as organising sales, improving engagements with local consumers, as well as expanding stakeholder and investor networks.

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Picture Credit: InstaReM

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Every crisis is an opportunity.

Although the devastating COVID-19 crisis caused fatalities and crippled economies around the world, it has forced a behavioural change. And this change could be vital when the world comes out of the crisis.

Singapore-headquartered TranSwap, a cross-border remittance company backed by Quest Ventures, sees the current crisis as an opportunity to bring in sea changes to the way people think and companies do business.

In this interview, its Co-founder and CEO Benjamin Wong talks about how COVID-19 is changing the world, what companies can learn from this and more.

Edited excerpts:

You may have gone through multiple crises, including the economic recession of 2008. We are now fighting COVID-19. How do you prepare yourself to address unexpected crises in your entrepreneurial life?

The journey and the experience I went through in the previous crises help a lot. We learn something from the past.

But as for COVID 19, I think it’s something nobody was prepared for. It’s like the whole world itself got locked down. Nobody knew about this. COVID-19 is not going to be something that will last only a few months. It can be for years. Not exclusive for industries, countries. Everyone will get affected.

But what I learned itself is if you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to prepare for the ups and downs; you cannot have all the ups, or you cannot have all the downs. It is during this time whether you can survive or not.

So entrepreneurs must always be resilient. Never give up, no matter what. Because when things turn around and you survive, you’ll be much stronger and better.

It’s a position itself that we’re very conscientious of which I’ve learnt from the past. Never make too many big capital commitments, or borrow too much from banks. That will lead to big problems and your company may not survive.

Also Read: Singapore’s cross-border remittance firm TranSwap in talks for US$5-10M investment

So you must be very resilient. Be careful about your expansion plan. Everybody wants to expand fast.

When there’s a crisis, how do you communicate with your team? In other words, what is your crisis communication strategy?

When you hit by a crisis, whether it is COVID-19 or your normal business down, the important thing is to let your staff know what is going on. They are here to help and support you if they understand what is going on. They may be prepared to cut wages, some may be prepared to take lower pay. So staff is very important.

The most important is being transparent to your staff. You have to keep them updated and tell them there is a future. If you don’t think there’s no future, then there is no point and better shut the shop. 

But if you can come up with a plan, then there’s a future. If you are transparent to the staff, many of them will be willing to chip in and be part of the journey in the same boat. That’s very important.

What if this crisis lasts longer than expected, say beyond a year. Do you have a long-term plan to come out of it?

Currently, COVID-19 has completely changed how people work and behave. During normal times, we would like our staff to come to the office because we feel that in the office, we can see each other. But now, they have to work from home, so now trust becomes a very important issue.

For longer-term, it’s about survival. It’s right now about planning a tight cashflow. Month on month. Day today.

But it’s also a good time to be calm and look at more things that you’ll be able to build for the future. Some of the things here are getting cheaper and we’re in the space of a digital transformation.

It’s a good time to reach out to companies, which formerly do not like digitisation or don’t like to go online. But now they have no choice. Their behaviour and confidence level has changed.

After a long time, things change. Right now, like my school-going daughter who studies online now, companies will get used to the new normal. 

‘Work from home’ has become part of companies policy. Do you think this will become a permanent arrangement now?

I think these are driven by several factors. In Singapore, which is under lockdown, you have no choice but to work from home. So there are essential services and non-essential services.

Essential services can still open but there’s a limit. I think 20-25 per cent of the staff can be in the office but the rest need to work from home.

If a company asks all of its staffers to go and work from home, many of them are not prepared for this. They may say ‘I don’t have a computer’ or ‘I do not know how to go online’, etc.

Also Read: How a startup founder in China tackled the COVID-19 crisis –and what you can learn from him

Until a couple of months ago, you needed to get approval from the management to work from home but now they have no choice.

Fortunately, the government is also helping a lot and is trying to help small companies digitalise. So when this crisis over, more companies would already be digitalised. Digitisation was not in their business plans earlier.

How has the current crisis affected the fintech industry as a whole, remittance included?

Overall when the economy drops, the amount of trade will also drop. It will affect some industry more. The current crisis has affected the travel, hotels, food industries.

One silver lining is that many offline companies have gone online.

On the one hand, when the economy drops, trades also drop, but online activities increase, which is good for us. 

For us, we saw an exponential increase in online transfers in the past few months.

When the economic activities are down, people don’t send money, which impacts the remittance industry. But you say you are seeing a jump in transactions…

Everyone buys things online via e-commerce platforms during the crisis. So this portion has increased. Some of these platforms are our customers. When people buy things online, they need TranSwap to send the money back to merchants. That portion has increased quite a lot.

But overall, certain sectors, such as travel booking are down. Some industries are zero but they are compensated by e-commerce platforms.

Having said that, if the current situation persists for a longer period, say for a year, fintech will also feel the heat. Indeed, all industries will get hit.

As a veteran entrepreneur, what advice would you give to entrepreneurs who have recently started but only to get hit by the coronavirus?

As for startups, it is always about expanding and burning money, so cash itself is very important.

You may not be able to scale up the business if you won’t get the next round of funding. But funding will be very short. For those startups that are already funded, maybe they should go back to those VCs that funded them to have more cash.

Cash conservation becomes important. So are planning and communication. Look at your current customer, get back to them and support each other.

What it means is that you look at what’s on your table, your plate, your current customer, your current investor, your staff, so all these are the current things that you are having. Try to talk to them, support each other. That will be quite helpful.

Do you think the current situation will alter the startup landscape in Asia and also in the world?

I think it will change a lot of things. Post-COVID-19, many startups will not make it because of cashflow. But when it turns around, those who survive the virus will be much stronger.

Fortunately, major governments are helping out. That will be very useful to hang on to it. What it means is you just need to survive. Maybe you don’t have three meals a day but only have one meal a day. But make sure you survive. Say when it is over, if you get over this itself, you’ll be much stronger.

Many VCs have asked their portfolio companies to be very cautious about spending. How will the virus spread affect VC investments in the world, especially the Asia Pacific?

Overall, investors tend to be cautious; if they can delay the funding for one more day, they will delay. Unless you’re a star or unless they feel that they have to invest in you because they have confidence in you, then they will invest in you.

Otherwise, they will just conserve until COVID-19 is over and they can see some silver lining ahead.

But there are still investors out there that invest. Sometimes it may be a good time to invest now because the terms may be cheaper. And some companies will feel that they will not disappear because they have good fundamentals then they probably will invest.

But overall the investment is down.

Many companies are firing employees in the hundreds. Is it the right strategy to fire employees when there is some crisis? 

There are cultural differences between East and West when it comes to addressing a crisis, just like the difference between the western and Asian treatments to an illness.

In Asia, firing employees is not the first thing that comes to companies’ mind when they are hit by a crisis. Here companies will try different medicines to keep the body strong and improve the body’s immune system. Layoffs are the last resort.

However, in the West, when a crisis befalls, companies immediately reduce the workforce. It is akin to removing the tumour when a patient is diagnosed with cancer.

The crisis has already made millions of people jobless. When people are out of a job, it becomes a social problem and the government will lose control of the people.

When people are out on the streets with no job or food, it becomes devastating.

For individual companies, there are so much we can do. Governments world over are now making serious efforts and tells employers ‘Don’t lay off people. We are here to help you. We can cover a part of the salary of your employees’. These will help entrepreneurs.

The government help is one thing, but businesses have to help themselves. We can’t always depend on the government.

You started in 2015 and now have a presence in Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Do you have plans to expand into multiple markets in the Asia Pacific despite the crisis?

Our plans remain the same. We are now accelerating our future plans. We got the resources. Now we have three licenses. This year we are going to apply for another five licences — the UK, Europe, Australia and Malaysia.

We are now hiring people. We are not sacking people. In Malaysia, we just hired somebody. We’re also hiring in Indonesia and Singapore.

We’re also looking for staff in the UK and Europe. This may not be something that other start-up will do. It also depends on your resources. 

We aspire to have global licenses in at least 15-20 countries.

We have seen a lot of companies come together to apply for new digital-banking licences in Singapore and Malaysia. Do you think that digital banking will change the financial industry?

I think digital banking is getting a lift in the UK. For digital banking, if we learn from the UK and Europe, what is their role? Is our bank not digital? It’s very digital now.

The role of a digital bank is to reach out to those certain sectors of the industries where the current banks do not serve well. So digital banking is reaching to certain sectors, certain people, certain groups where the big banks do not serve them well.

They also give competitions to the banks. Now because of Challenger banks, traditional banks have become much more competitive and transparent, which eventually benefits the consumer.

So for Singapore digital banks, unlike the UK Challenger bank, the regulatory bodies study and look at it and decided to issue digital bank in Singapore on a certain status and standing. Challenger banks in the UK are much cheaper — only GBP5 million to start a Challenger bank. 

My point is digital banks have a role to play. They compensate what the big banks don’t do well.

As per records, TranSwap has raised only one round of funding — US$1.2 million in 2018. Was it a deliberate decision not to go for big rounds of funding?

So far we have raised about US$2.5 million, and we are going to close another bigger round soon, of around US$5-10 million.

When we started in 2015, we used our own money and friend’s money. When you take VC money or other people’s money, you must be ready for it. Otherwise, it will put a lot of stress and pressure on you because when a VC pumps in money, they are looking for returns and traction.

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The post TranSwap CEO talking about remittance industry, current crisis, and crisis communication appeared first on e27.

As a loyal reader and part of the e27 community, you may have heard of one of our latest innovations for the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem — the Ecosystem Roundup.

As part of our e27 Pro membership programme, the Ecosystem Roundup appears on members’ inbox every Monday and Thursday in the form of a newsletter that contains summaries of the most important updates in the region. It ranges from funding and appointment news to analysis of current issues.

Even better, we have started to include snippets of upcoming exclusive stories before they were being published on the e27 site.

When we launched Ecosystem Roundup earlier this year, we were humbled to receive a warm welcome from the members.

But how exactly do we select the articles that go into the newsletter? Our Editor, Sainul Abudheen K., explains the idea behind the product and how it is being implemented.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Digital payments platform InstaReM launches cash payout option in the Philippines

Like many other innovations, we developed this product to solve a common problem faced by users. In doing business, having first access to information is a crucial part of decision-making.

We learned that a typical investor or startup founder might spend at a great deal of time browsing through news sites to catch up with the latest updates in the industry — a process that they wish could have been more efficient.

“Since Southeast Asia consists of a group of countries, with many publications in both English and non-English languages, it is hard for industry people to scan through multiple publications and portals to update themselves about the major happenings in the region,” Sainul explains.

“We have made it easy for them by providing all the major startup news on a single platform, aggregated from over 50 sites — English and non-English,” he continues.

To do this, as the who leads the initiative, Sainul curates the most important stories from various online media platforms. After sorting out the relevant publication, he picks the most outstanding stories based on several criteria such as its potential impact on the ecosystem.

Also Read: Afternoon News Roundup: Vietnam’s e-commerce enabler OnPoint raises US$8M funding

However, he states that the best tool to help him sort out the stories is his instinct as an editor. While it might sound like a natural thing to do, the ability to instinctively perform this task is something that is developed over years of experience working as a startup writer.

This gives the product an even stronger advantage as it is being curated by people who have been working in the regional startup ecosystem for more than five years.

Curious about the Ecosystem Roundup, and other services featured in e27 Pro? Want to experience yourself how the product works? Visit this link to understand more about our membership programme and how it can benefit your business!

If you are an e27 Pro member, tell us what you think of the Ecosystem Roundup through this survey.

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The post Behind the scenes: How we curate content for the e27 Ecosystem Roundup feature appeared first on e27.

Amartha CEO also resigns from Indonesia’s presidential staff position

Andi Taufan Garuda Putra, CEO of fintech company Amartha, has resigned as a special staffer for President Joko Widodo, following allegations of conflict of interest, according to a Kr-Asia report.

Earlier, Ruangguru CEO Belva Devara also resigned from the same position over the controversy.

The resignations came following an article in The Jakarta Post, in which critics questioned the involvement of startups founded by the special staff of the President with the government’s national-level programmes.

“This resignation is based solely on my sincere desire to fully serve the economic empowerment of the community, especially for micro and small businesses,” the 32-year-old Putra said in a statement.

Other than Ruangguru and Amartha, education startups MauBelajarApa, Pijar, Pintaria and Tokopedia Pintar are among the startups involved in the programme, whose founders are still holding various positions in the Presidential staff.

Razer launches fully automated masks to fight COVID-19 in Singapore

Gaming company Razer has launched a fully automated masks to support Singapore’s fight against COVID-19, according to a company statement.

The ‘Made in Singapore‘ masks have been created in an ISO 13485 certified control room and will be validated as per local and international standards.

The line is currently expected to have a manufacturing capacity of five million masks per month which can be scaled up if necessary.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Digital payments platform InstaReM launches cash payout option in the Philippines

Razer said that this initiative began due to the lack of face masks and a growing demand in Southeast Asia.

“Due to the lack of high quality and reliably manufactured face masks in the market as well as the lack of face masks in Southeast Asia, Razer committed to setting up a fully automated face mask production line in Singapore within 30 days from 1 April 2020,” a company spokesperson said.

Companies such as Frasers Property, JustCo and PBA Group have already committed up to US$50,000 for initial shipments of the masks.

In addition, Razer’s subsidiary, Razer Fintech, has also recently launched a US$50M COVID-19 relief fund for its partners.

India’s online travel company Expedia names new CEO

India’s online travel firm Expedia has elevated Vice Chairman Peter Kern as CEO, according to Techcrunch.

Expedia has also appointed company veteran Eric Hart as its CFO.

At the same time, the firm has informed that the executives and Board members will forgo their salary for the remainder of the year and senior executives will take a 25 per cent pay cut due to a dip in the travel demand.

“We are unable to make any predictions as to when travel will rebound, but we emphatically believe that it will, for … ‘if there’s life, there’s travel,’” said Barry Diller, Expedia chairman.

The company recently received US$3.2 billion investments from Apollo Global Management and Silver Lake to sustain its business through the pandemic.

“This investment helps ensure the company has the resources to sustain market leadership and emerge from the current economic environment stronger than ever. While it may not emerge stronger than ever, certainly having a significant chunk of operating capital will help ensure that it emerges merely whenever this industry slump ends,” said Apollo partner Reed Rayman.

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Image Credit: Arga Aditya, Expedia, Razer

The post Afternoon News Roundup: Amartha CEO resigns from Indonesia’s presidential staff position; Razer launches fully automated masks appeared first on e27.