Oyo lays off 600 people amid restructuring plans
The SoftBank-backed hotel chain had 3,700 employees before the firing; The company has cut down operations in China and the US and is now focusing on India, Southeast Asia, and Europe.

CVC Capital explores sale, growth options for Razer
The development comes less than a year after CVC bought Razer, co-founded by Min-Liang Tan and the late Robert Krakoff in California and Singapore in a US$3.2B deal.

SG’s AirCarbon exchange looks to raise US$50M Series B
The round has already picked the interest of 17 parties, including banks and financial institutions; The carbon exchange’s existing backers include Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investment Co. and Deautsche Borse.

A-Labs launches US$10M Web3 fund in Philippines
Archipelago Labs is backed by partners from the PDAX, Oak Drive Ventures, and Magellan Digital Investment Group; Next year, the startup accelerator will run the first cohort for its Archipelago Labs Accelerator Block.

Singapore’s Carousell lays off 110 employees
Quek Siu Rui, CEO of mobile classifieds unicorn, says that Carousell saw the signs of high inflation, geopolitical risks and supply chain disruption as early as March this year.

Philippine digibank Tonik to acquire B2B fintech firm TendoPay
TendoPay helps companies provide payroll-enabled financial solutions to employees; Its services include BNPL, emergency cash loans, personal finance tools, virtual cards, prepaid insurance cards, and reward programmes.

Tesla teases Thailand entry this month
On its LinkedIn page, the company posted a teaser for the launch only available to users in the country; On its LinkedIn page, the company posted a teaser for the launch only available to users in the country.

Carbon tech startup Fairatmos lands US$4.5M seed capital
The investors are Go-Ventures, Kreasi Terbarukan, Vertex SEA and India; Fairatmos helps project developers design carbon sequestration projects and connect with firms and individuals seeking to buy or finance carbon credits to reach their net-zero goals.

Features
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GapMaps takes the guesswork out of your location planning decisions
GapMaps provides accurate and up-to-date information about locations, which retailers can use while expanding their network or optimising existing stores.

Preference for green jobs is the “most exciting” climate tech development: Lightspeed
While this volume of talent is still too low to have a transformative impact by itself, Lightspeed views this trend as “encouraging”.

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Serving up the future: How robots are revolutionising the F&B industry
By embracing the support of technology to augment the human resources we have, the F&B industry can grow by leaps and bounds.

A new era of events: How the pandemic created a new norm
As the height of the pandemic draws to a close, businesses can reach new and greater audiences than ever before through hybrid and virtual events.

Web3
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Indonesia central bank says digital rupiah currency can be used in metaverse
Bank Indonesia launched the design for the digital rupiah last week; The currency will use a tech platform that will be compatible with other central banks’ digital currencies.

9 simple ways to cut down on your crypto taxes
This article sheds light on some of the smartest options to help you save more on your crypto taxes and lessen your liability.

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At its core, embedded finance combines two worlds: financial services and digital. Having long been kept apart, their integration opens up vast opportunities for innovation that bring major practical advantages.

Embedded finance allows business models and their related consumer experiences to operate more effectively, for example, by making working capital more efficient or making payments easier.

Embedded finance promises value for customers, embedders, financial institutions, and the larger addressable market.

Let me break it down a little:

• Customers

There is huge value for SMEs when they can get better access to finance thanks to the rich data already available on the systems they already use, such as accounting packages or e-commerce platforms. The same opportunity exists for underserved consumers: combining applications that deal with a broader aspect of their lives (such as their mobile phone contract) with new financial services makes these consumers economically viable to serve with more than just basic financial services.

• Embedders (those who embed finance into software or platforms)

Innovators who embed financial services into their products benefit in three main ways. Firstly, they have the opportunity to monetise financial transactions that now take place on their platform. Secondly, by enriching their product with new supercharged features, they attract new customers and engage them more deeply. Thirdly, the result is greater retention and value over the customer’s lifetime.

• Financial institutions

Embedded finance providers act as a force multiplier for the distribution and consumption of financial services offered by banks. If embedded finance providers enable more businesses, for example, to put more debit cards in people’s hands, the bank that provides the underlying instruments also stands to gain.

Also Read: MiRXES launches SEA first Translator Program with Plug and Play

The market potential is large and expanding. Bain & Company expect the US market for platforms and enablers to more than double to US$51 billion by 2026 (in total revenue across payments, lending, banking, and cards from 2021). The transaction value of embedded finance also will surge from US$2.6 trillion to US$7 trillion across the same time scale. 

Next, let’s assess where we are now.

Current embedded finance climate

Until recently, state of the art for building Embedded Finance solutions was to use APIs (programming interfaces) provided by banks for, say, creating accounts or issuing cards – this approach is called Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS).

For most innovators, however, BaaS is a heavy lift: implementation times are long, and it requires a hefty investment. 

It’s only going to get more complex as regulators increasingly scrutinise the BaaS model.  Suddenly it seems that regulators are indeed taking a look. 

Concerns were raised by the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to EML Payments, in November 2022 – resulting in EML Payments temporarily ceasing to onboard new customers.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the US recently hinted more regulation is forthcoming to the BaaS space there too.  The public filing of an agreement between the OCC and Blue Ridge Bank highlights a firm example of regulators taking action on BaaS models by a specific bank.

While not great news for Blue Ridge, it provides an example map for other fintech and banks in the market and how they can keep on the right side of regulation. Thus, improving and adding additional protection for the end user.

This is why a radically new approach is needed

What if embedding financial services was no more complex for innovators than integrating third-party software?  And what if banks had a bulletproof answer to their regulators’ concerns with BaaS.

Also Read: ‘DTC, embedded insurance models have big potential in SEA’: Eurazeo’s Albert Shyy

To achieve this, at Weavr we are pioneering a different approach to BaaS, which we call ‘plug and play’ because all the technical, regulatory and operational complexity related to the embedded financial services are included ‘in the box’ with the innovator only having to take on peripheral responsibilities.  As importantly, all the responsibilities that the bank needs to be taking are also ‘in the box’.  

Unpacking what’s in the box

All the facilities, responsibilities and processes that the bank would typically cater for when delivering its own financial products are provided for in a configurable way.  This includes:

• Customer on-boarding: customer ID verification, screening and risk assessment
• Financial data security tools for innovators to operate within  data security standards such as PCI-DSS
• Components to support the regulatory requirements for strong customer authentication, for instance, through biometrics
• Logging of customer acceptance of terms and fees, as well as of any material customer financial activity
• Connection to  transactional systems and financial systems of record (e.g. ledgers)
• Orchestration across multiple financial institutions, financial tech vendors and service providers

Few, if any, innovators that want to take advantage of embedded finance have the appetite to grapple with the above responsibilities. Still, absolving innovators from most of these burdens has to be accompanied by sufficient freedom for creativity and creating seamless customer experiences.

At the same time, the bank (and perhaps more importantly, the regulator) is assured that these sensitive matters are being done to its standards and not outsourced to the innovator who typically neither wants nor can effectively take them on.

Five key principles that plug-and-play finance solutions should adhere

In summary, if we had to propose a ‘manifesto’ for plug-and-play finance, it would include these principles:

• Software-only responsibility: Plug-and-play finance solutions should, wherever possible, be no more onerous to implement and run than any other software package.  
• Abstraction from financial protocols: Plug-and-pllay finance solutions should abstract away details of specific technical protocols associated with (often legacy) financial technology and expose functionality in high-level intentional terms (what, rather than how), such as onboarding a customer, issuing a card, enabling a transfer of funds, while aggregating and encapsulating the many fine-grained sequences of steps, interactions and exchanges of data to achieve them.
• Contextual adaptation: functionality and processes offered by Plug-and-play finance solutions – whether related to risk management, compliance oversight, end-customer charges, approval workflows, etc. – should not be one-size-fits-all. They should be adaptable to the deployment context. 
• Maximum allowed access to financial data and controls: Plug-and-play finance solutions should provide maximum visibility over financial data and maximum control over financial actions as allowed for by (a) data security, end-customer privacy and financial regulation, (b) by the ability for the end-customer to effectively delegate and withdraw access, and (c) the risk of inadvertent or malicious action by the innovator or third-parties to the detriment of the end-customer. 
• Minimum constraints over non-financial data and controls: Plug-and-play finance solutions should leave it open as far as possible for the innovator to design any aspect of the solution that doesn’t compromise the integrity of the financial solution or bring the innovator into the scope of financial regulation.

The plug-and-play approach changes everything, unleashing the power of embedded finance across a multitude of industries.

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In this article, I’ll be sharing a self-assessment of my progress as an entrepreneur. A quick introduction so we all have some context. I’m Wen, Founder and CEO of SushiVid.com, an influencer marketing marketplace turned tech-enabled influencer marketing agency.

Incorporated in 2015 in Malaysia, we have over 7,000 influencers whom we have paid via our platform and have generated an average of US$1 million in billing annually for the past three years. I am not a high-growth startup Founder. I did not raise a whole lot of VC money, but I’m sure many could identify with my journey and struggles just the same. 

The show must go on

One common theme I’ve been getting, a question that’s been going around amongst my peers (who are also decade-long Founders), is succession planning.

I never gave it much thought until this year. It’s a monumental task and a decision that many entrepreneurs/ leaders miss when they first take on the CEO role. How to wash one’s hands off or pass the baton on?

Also Read: From hobby to startup: Here’s my story as IKIGUIDE’s Co-Founder

The show must go on, as one says. A successful business must continue to thrive without us founders, and the quest to find a successor is probably one of the biggest challenges we all have to face. I have been contemplating this a lot this year.

As I am nearing my 40s, the thought of starting a family pops up. I may want to at some point, who knows? The idea of managing both a family and a company is petrifying. Thanks to the quick exits that we all once aspired for (Joel Neoh exited Groupsmore in less than 12 months) or foolishly thought we could achieve.

To all aspiring entrepreneurs out there, realistically, the grind is at least a decade long. I guess I should’ve thought about this more seven years ago. But again, overthinking it may have deterred me from starting SushiVid.

Seven years is a long time, at least for me. If I could attribute my persistence to something, it must be my masochistic love for a good challenge. It dawned on me that the longer we linger in our entrepreneurship path, the more complicated the challenges become, and that gets me going.

As entrepreneurs, we have got to love changes but, at the same time, also be wise to stop ourselves from working on every new shiny idea that comes our way. I learned that the hard way. In our journey in SushiVid, I also started GoShareLah, ConfirmPlusChop, SushiVid LIVE and IGLinks.io.

All with circa 15 manpower at any point in time. While I still believe all our MVPs were great, I do not have the manpower or personal capacity to explore them all. If only I could tap the undo button, erase those experiments and focus on one instead.   

The right kind of detox

In 2020 and 2021, we slowed down our experiments due to the pandemic, but the work was equally fun because the challenges we faced were all distinct, new and difficult. I am so thankful for the Alibaba eFounders programme.

Thankfully right before the pandemic, they shared with us their experience navigating SARS, and that laid a path or two for me to follow. I had to plan pay cuts, manage remote working and handle resignations while our business was soaring all at the same time.

The pandemic has also enabled me to run a detox around the office. We were forced to do things very economically. Although it was an uphill climb at first, this austerity drive brought out our creativity and resourcefulness. It was one of the best exercises we have ever done in SushiVid.

A founder’s problems can come in all shapes and sizes

2022, now that the pandemic stress is almost over, one would think I could finally catch a break, but no. Just when I thought I could finally enjoy some peacetime managerial work, I was slapped with the biggest betrayal I’ve ever had to endure in my working lifetime. We caught our employee(s) committing a Criminal Breach of Trust (CBT). So you see, a founder’s problems can come in all shapes and sizes.

This CBT issue we are facing is not only a problem that we face as a company or industry, I believe it is a model-wide problem for all gig economy model startups. In the gig economy model, there are many suppliers and many buyers. Gig-economy platforms like ours are the platform in between that connects the suppliers to the buyers.

Ideally, everything should be handled via our platform, suppliers should be randomised or, at best, listed based on a review or prioritised listing the algorithm controls that. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Things could be fair and efficient, but it isn’t happening this way at the moment. I’d say for most gig economy models.

Also Read: Dedoco: A founder’s journey to building next-gen digital trust technology

Suppliers and customers are simply not ready for an entirely self-serve platform, and very often, they would appreciate recommendations because it’s just much easier. Consequently, relationships are built, and illicit secret side deals are made quickly. Such deals are essentially what make up the criminal breaches of trust.  

Navigating this has been difficult for me. We, as the leaders of the company, can’t oversee every conversation. It is impossible to control greed or to expect everyone to behave with the same level of integrity as we do.

We want to believe in the best and trust our employees. It would be impossible for us to lead a company out of fear or with a sense of distrust, but also, at the same time, we have to be slightly cautious. This is yet another balancing game that we need to play as a business. Do we become too rigid and risk losing clients? Or do we remain convenient and easy to work with but risk getting taken advantage of?

Sadly, I believe that this is the start of where layers of approvals get implemented in a startup, and we become the old dogs of the game waiting to be disrupted. Seven years is about right. So we got to pick up and self-disrupt before we get disrupted!  

Final thoughts

On the brighter side, as an ever-evolving founder, I have also become more mature in business relationships. To be fair, the first few years, every time a player came, we’d treat each other with hostility.

But recently, influencer marketing has become a vibrant industry, and with it, a lot more players and contributors in the ecosystem. I, too, have softened my approach to other industry players. I guess I’ve grown up? Better to join forces than to try to beat each other up.

We’ve collaborated with players across borders, we’re in talks with players locally to form some kind of an association, and it’s become much more constructive and friendly as compared to the hostility I faced and contributed to in the earlier years. 

Overall, I love the 37-year-old me and every bit of this entrepreneurship journey. I am positive about the industry and the outlook of the market. I am excited and look forward to the new year. 2023 will be another year with many opportunities for tremendous growth and progress. I believe we Malaysians (post-GE-15) are off to a good start!

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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From public health scares to ongoing conflict and geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions are becoming more frequent.

Past lockdowns in key port cities, military conflicts, and trade disputes slowed the flow of raw materials to manufacturing hubs and finished goods to consumer markets, forcing companies to reconfigure their supply and production networks. More companies are following in response to ongoing conflict-related shortages.

Aside from strategies such as near sourcing production and regionalising supply chains, companies are also investing in digital solutions to address disruptions. These include tools that enable complete supply chain visibility for decision-makers, the utilisation of data and analytics for better planning, and predictive models to identify future disruptions.

But while enterprises are progressing in these fields, the trade finance sector continues to lag behind other components of the supply chain network.

Also Read: Can blockchain function as a medium for social good and digital philanthropy?

Financial institutions’ processes are still paper-intensive and highly manual, slowing down the entire supply chain and generating more operational costs for all parties involved while remaining vulnerable to fraud.

Traditional processes are holding the trade finance sector back

Trade finance has been a paper- and labour-intensive sector throughout its long history. But with the astronomical growth in supply chain networks’ complexity, as well as the sheer volume of goods being shipped, the highly-traditional trade finance system is hindering business efficiency, agility and scalability.

With its preponderance of manual processes and overreliance on physical documents, supply chains are littered with process inefficiencies, susceptibility to fraud, and unnecessary increases in costs.

Large amounts of physical documentation, such as product, shipping, and transaction details, are exchanged through multiple parties. Fairly straightforward processes can take up to months to complete.

Meanwhile, this is all against a backdrop of more stringent due diligence requirements such as know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML). These regulations are precisely in response to the lack of transparency that legacy processes exacerbate.

And failure to comply will have serious consequences on businesses’ ability to continue driving Asia Pacific’s economic growth. According to the Asia Development Bank (ADB), the region has the highest rejection rate of trade finance proposals at 34 per cent.

Little wonder, as fraud, especially duplicate trade financing, continues to be a thorn in the side of trade finance. In one of the most prominent cases in recent history, Singapore oil trading company Hin Leong led to US$3.85 billion in losses for 23 banks.

While this type of fraud, which involves financing a single invoice multiple times, is not new and has occurred in the industry as far back as decades ago, institutions are unable to make significant progress against it.

This is a result of the lack of visibility and transparency between stakeholders due to the difficulty in sharing critical data in a timely fashion. In turn, a collaboration between stakeholders takes a blow and opportunities for malpractice become commonplace.

Blockchain tech makes processes faster, cost-efficient, and transparent

When trade finance is done on a decentralised blockchain, all transactions are recorded in a secure database which is accessible to all parties to the trade. This addresses the three major challenges facing trade finance transactions: inefficiencies stemming from the use of large quantities

of physical documents, increased costs of complying with regulatory requirements, and the lack of total visibility, which makes the system vulnerable to fraud.

Conducting transactions through a decentralised blockchain entails digitalising the documentation created, exchanged, and processed by the various stakeholders in a supply chain.

Transmitting the electronic versions of these documents through the blockchain reduces transaction times from months to hours because all involved parties have access to it. The costs associated with such paper-intensive processes are also reduced.

Also Read: ‘Trade & supply chain sector is set to witness unprecedented blockchain adoption’: #dltledgers

In addition, stakeholders with access to the blockchain have complete visibility over the whole process, significantly reducing the risk of duplicate trade financing. At the same time, parties are assured of the integrity of their data due to the unprecedented security of digital ledger technology.

Successful blockchain adoption is a network-wide effort

For the utilisation of blockchain technology in trade finance to be successful, all parties must buy into it. If just one of the multiple parties in a cross-border trade scenario is not part of the decentralised blockchain, other parties will not be able to have full visibility on all transactions, and confidence in the latter’s integrity against fraud would not be possible.

Improvements in transaction speed and lowered operational costs would not reach their full potential as well. There would still be a need for physical documentation in certain links in the whole supply chain, as well as slower processes.

Financial institutions and other large organisations must take the lead with blockchain adoption. They can be the drivers of change in trade finance, influencing other stakeholders to become more efficient via improved transparency and collaboration.

In addition, this can also fine-tune legislation and regulatory mechanisms to enable the pivot towards blockchain technology in the overall supply chain process.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

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Airwallex is pleased to announce that it has launched multi-currency physical corporate cards in Singapore, available for all Singapore-based businesses. Airwallex’s physical cards complement its existing suite of virtual and digital wallet-supported corporate cards released in Singapore earlier in May this year.

With its virtual financial products, customers enjoy various benefits. For instance, Singapore-based companies can instantly create and issue free virtual multi-currency debit cards to make transactions with vendors and online third parties, paying in over 140 different currencies at favourable exchange rates with zero international transaction fees. Moreover, the card creation process is fast, convenient, and secure, enabling companies to conduct business globally with ease and confidence.

To empower businesses of all sizes to accept payments, move money internationally, and simplify their financial operations all in one single platform, Airwallex continues to enhance its card functionality by enabling the use of physical cards in Singapore. With this product, customers using Airwallex cards to pay for business flights and hotels can now extend that use and pay for other travel expenses while overseas, especially for Point of Sales (POS) transactions.

Local businesses can create and issue up to 50 free Airwallex physical and virtual corporate cards as needed at the touch of a button. They can entrust and empower employees to spend in multiple currencies without transaction fees and track expenses in the web app. Consequently, businesses will be further empowered when making everyday financial transaction decisions. 

Airwallex’s partnership with Agoda for travel promotion

Along with launching its physical cards, Airwallex has partnered with Agoda to offer up to 7+1% cashback for applicable hotel bookings made on the travel platform. Specifically, Singapore-based businesses with valid Airwallex employee cards can enjoy a 7% discount on eligible accommodation transactions and 1% cash back for any transactions made on Agoda. The 7% discount will be applied automatically during booking on Airwallex’s affiliate site on Agoda. The additional 1% cashback will be credited to the customer’s Airwallex account, following the promotional cashback schedule.

Airwallex is also extending this 1% cashback on all other local and international transactions without limit.

Also read: Lalamove’s Customisable Solutions: a game-changer for delivery

The partnership is timely as business travel has picked up, with most countries easing their COVID-19 travel restrictions and businesses resuming their operation under the new normal. A recent Business Travel Recovery Poll by the Global Business Travel Association expects business travel to continue its recovery, with a strong outlook set for 2023. Even as businesses continue to embrace new ways of working, with hybrid or remote work policies, almost three-quarters of all respondents do not expect their employees’ business trips to be impacted.

According to Deloitte, the opportunity to conduct sales meetings, strengthen client relationships, and network at conferences in person was listed as being among the top purposes for the comeback of business travel.

Additionally, a key finding from a separate study — the 2023 Global Business Travel Forecast by CWT – revealed that business travellers can expect to see price increases for airfares (8.4%) and hotel rates (8.2%) in 2023. Therefore, by using Airwallex’s corporate cards to book business travel accommodations on Agoda, companies can maximise cost savings even as employees travel for work.

Empowering businesses to grow across borders

Airwallex was founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 2015 by engineering-banking friends Jack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, and Xijing Dai to empower businesses of all sizes to accept payments, move money globally, and simplify their financial operations, all in one single platform. Its purpose is to connect entrepreneurs, business builders, makers and creators with opportunities in every corner of the world. 

The company has a global footprint across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America, with over 1,300 employees across 19 global locations. Airwallex also recently raised US$100 million in its Series E2 financing round, increasing its total funding to over US$900 million.

Also read: Gamifiying education: Soqqle takes schooling to the metaverse

Airwallex made its official debut in Singapore in January 2022 after securing a licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2021. Accordingly, Singapore businesses can start experiencing Airwallex’s offerings, including global account issuance, multi-currency wallets, and online payment acceptance, among others.

Airwallex’s strong growth in Singapore

The launch of Airwallex’s physical corporate cards and partnership with Agoda is another step towards a full rollout of Airwallex’s suite of money movement offerings in Singapore. Since its expansion into the Singaporean market, the company has engaged directly with businesses at trade shows and events like the Singapore Fintech Festival, Singapore Business Show, and Accounting & Finance Show to share how Airwallex can support and empower them. 

Airwallex has also partnered with Google Ads and EasyParcel on campaigns to share how its product suite can support the business community in Singapore. Furthermore, Airwallex recently announced its collaboration with buy now pay later (BNPL) provider Atome to allow its merchants to offer BNPL as a payment option to shoppers across Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Also read: Safeguarding digital assets through cybersecurity innovations

The Airwallex x Agoda travel promotion deal has gone live and will be available until 31 Dec 2023. Hence, to take advantage of the opportunity, businesses are encouraged to sign up with Airwallex to receive either the virtual corporate card or the newly launched physical cards and enjoy all the perks when booking with Agoda. The earlier businesses take advantage of this promotion, the more cost savings they can enjoy! 

Sign up for the offer here.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Airwallex

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The post Airwallex: making business transactions easier than ever with physical cards launch appeared first on e27.