Over the last decade, ASEAN fintech brands were content to play at the shallow end of the digital financial services pool, dabbling in lending (P2P, crowdfunding) or simple payments services (e-wallets, mobile money).

This changed practically overnight in 2020, however, as lockdowns and social distancing measures put lending on the backburner. Instead, the focus turned to risk mitigation and sending new digital users toward growing insurance and investment products, while greatly accelerating payments and remittances.

The e-Conomy SEA 2020 report by Google found that while loan books were practically flat at US$23 billion last year, investment assets under management skyrocketed by 116 per cent, insurance by 30 per cent, and remittances by 43 per cent respectively.

Enemies at the gates

COVID-19 saw higher risk consciousness and larger demand for insurance coverage online. This was particularly true when it came to bite-sized microinsurance products offered in-platform thanks to partnerships between apps and insurers. 

Remittances — already a major segment pre-pandemic thanks to the Philippines’ standing as the third-largest remittance-receiving country– got a further shot in the arm in 2020 as both regulators and employers took payments online.

Google expects these behavioural changes to last through 2025 when up to 40 per cent of the total remittance value will be transacted online.

Online platforms, namely super-apps that boasted large ecosystems of transactions, took the leap into more complex digital financial services. Grab had already launched its Pay Later scheme in Singapore in 2019.

Also Read: How important is regulation for digital banks in India?

It quickly expanded the service to other ASEAN markets in 2020 as people’s spending cash took a hit and banks tightened lending. The super-app also started offering micro-investments via a robo-advisory subsidiary and then leveraged partnerships with legacy asset managers.

Gojek (now GoTo) was not to be outdone. In December 2020, its fintech arm GoPay took a major stake in a licensed Indonesian entity to convert Bank Jago into GoPay’s very own in-house digital bank. This was just months after Gojek partnered with a local insurtech company to launch the app’s microinsurance in Indonesia.

Banks cannot rest on their laurels anymore and pretend their corporate and enterprise accounts will keep them afloat. No longer can they ignore microfinancing products due to high transaction costs. The super-apps are only a year into their digital banking war, but it won’t be long before they start sizing up bigger, more lucrative accounts.

Brick-and-mortar banks still have their legacy accounts and large, on-ground networks, as well as strong KYC experience to exploit. As licensed banks with high capital buffers to withstand economic shocks and decades of specialisation (as opposed to super-apps who roll out and shut down new verticals frequently), legacy banks have a lot of fight in them yet– if, and only if, they execute fully digital plays themselves.

Regulators have stepped up quickly, with Indonesia expected to release regulations for the establishment of digital banks in late 2021.

Financial inclusion vs economic inclusion

Micro-financing products in ASEAN have long been linked to financial inclusion, which the World Bank defined as adults having access to and the ability to use a range of appropriate financial services.

At its most basic level, formal financial inclusion starts with having a deposit or transaction account at a bank/FI or through a mobile money service provider. The account can be used to make and receive payments and to store or save money.

Also Read: Digital banking platform for Filipino entrepreneurs NextPay accepted into Y Combinator, raises funding

For banks, financial inclusion (and microfinance) has been a buzzword to trot out in the name of ‘national service’ or CSR, not really seen as a real money-making segment with deposit and transfer fees all but non-existent. 

As of 2019, close to 200 million people in ASEAN were unbanked, and another 98 million underbanked (meaning they have a bank account, but nothing more). In Indonesia, there were 92 million unbanked and 47 million underbanked. But in 2021, the unbanked number is bound to be much lower, with millions of Indonesians in the super-app ecosystems using some form of e-wallet or micro-lending product.

Legacy banks should turn their focus to the underbanked, and focus on ‘economic inclusion’ instead, being banked and having real upward mobility via access to loans, investing, and insurance products.

World Bank research found that digitising social transfer payments in African countries cut down corruption, administrative costs, and most importantly, travel and wait times for beneficiaries, especially those in rural areas who had to close shop for the day.

Elsewhere, those with insurance invested in riskier, higher-return technologies. In India, index-based rainfall insurance allowed farmers to cultivate riskier cash crops that commanded higher prices. 

Formalising the informal in ASEAN

There are some similarities in our neck of the woods. In addition to farmers, ASEAN’s massive and still growing gig economy is made up of ‘warung’ owners, freelancers, solopreneurs, independent service providers, and more. While the informal gig economy is by no means a monolith, banks can leverage digital partnerships to transform it, piece by piece, while simultaneously launching new, profitable product lines.

Banks have the ability to offer competitive interest rates and lower-risk structures compared to, say, P2P and crowdfunding platforms. Those with more capital heft may choose to build their digital banking arms in-house, while smaller banks can instead form strategic M&As with digital banking startups that serve to channel the unbanked and underbanked.

In early 2020, global fintech Nium launched a remittance-as-a-service (RaaS), enabling third-party companies to offer remittance services on their own platforms. Banks in remittance-heavy countries like Indonesia and the Philippines can immediately bring a cost-effective payment offering to their corporate and enterprise clients (which doubles up as an employee benefit) while catering to the millions of overseas workers who send and receive money weekly. 

Also Read: MyMy joins forces with Sukaniaga to bid for Malaysia digital banking license

Banks bring their familiarity with local labour and financial regulations while offering low transaction fees. With informal workers using a bank’s RaaS frequently, it becomes easier to offer relevant products such as micro-insurance against health and workplace risks or micro-investments for children’s education.

Banks can also work with P2P lenders such as Modal Rakyat, which can serve as yet another channel for formal microfinance products. Apps like this usually already have a solid database of freelancers who trust them when it comes to getting working capital for projects. This gives banks an ‘in’ with an already diverse subset of gig workers.

For ‘warung’ or mom-and-pop shop owners, platforms like Awan Tunai have done a good job building trust and lending products while digitsing transactions that were before mostly made in cash. With access to this key segment, banks can offer competitive lending and risk management products and build credit scoring methods based on data collected by Awan Tunai.

There are many ways to make the digital banking leap, but simply rolling out a digital banking option is not enough. It is a cost and labour-intensive undertaking in a very competitive (yet lucrative) space that needs to pay off.

Therefore, legacy banks need to figure out how to penetrate the gig economy in ways that complement and leverage their existing product and consumer verticals.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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We understand the struggle. Things get to your inbox, but there are too many emails that you are not able to respond to, and before you know it you’ve missed that all-important email from someone you’ve been waiting to hear from.

Don’t miss great opportunities. With the Connect feature of e27 Pro, investors can now access the Connection Manager, a tool that lets them efficiently manage connection requests sent by startups.

Connection Manager is an extension of the Connect Dashboard, which allows e27 Connect Investors to review, respond to, or reject the Connect requests made by the Pro startups. With Connection Manager, we aim to make this entire process more proficient, allowing investors to view their pending requests, startup’s profile, and their fundraising information. 

Exciting new features to look out for

With Connection Manager, investors are now able to utilise 3 main features:

1. View Connect Summary and Status
2. View the Startup information
3. Approve or Reject Connect requests

With these key features, investors can now manage the connection requests directly from e27. Notifications will still be available via email but with this current improvement, Connect status and summary are now also available to view on e27.

For a step-by-step guide on how to manage your request, you may check this article. 

The post How the e27 Connection Manager helps empower investor-startup partnerships appeared first on e27.

SEA Booster Programme, a 5-week incubation programme supported by BLOCK71, has unveiled the 32 startups selected for its latest cohort.

Of these, 28 hail from Southeast Asia. The other four come from Japan, the US, and Australia.

Launched just two months ago, the programme’s mission is to help founders scale their businesses locally and regionally in Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

During this period, founders receive mentorship from industry experts, networking opportunities with business partners, access to investors, and a global community of Asia-based tech founders.

Notable trainers, mentors, and panelists include Joel Leong, co-founder of Shopback; Binh Tran, Partner at 500 Startups; Valerie Vu, Investor at Venturra Capital; Nikhil Kapur, Partner at STRIVE; and Achmad Zaky, Founding Partner of Init-6.

The upcoming run of the SEA Booster programme will focus on solutions for smart cities.

Here are the selected startups for the latest cohort:

3km Food

A food platform and marketplace that caters to a community of home cooks to sell homemade food across Vietnam.

Aplikasir 

Provides payment gateway that monitors business transactions anytime and anywhere.

Assist.id

Helps health facilities digitise business operations and connect with patients through the web and mobile apps.

Ayoexport

A virtual assistant service and web app that helps SMEs export more easily, efficiently and integratedly.

BrainEnTech Neuroscience

Combines neuroscience and AI to enhance the rate at which humans can learn.

Belfarm

An online distribution platform that bridges the gap between sellers and buyers, eliminating the retail markup from middleman traders.

Bindcover

A platform for selling and claiming property insurance.

Carfixsg.co

Connects car owners to independent workshops for their car maintenance jobs with an aim to increase the transparency of transactions along the process.

Eden

Aims to streamline the F&B industry workflow through a collection of real-time customer requests and to improve service through data analytics.

EzCompostr

It’s developing a composting bin in order to transform household food waste into useful materials.

Fiahub

A platform that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrency using local fiat currencies easily and instantly.

Fresh Company

An aggregator that helps consumers find the best grocery produce online through a combination of machine learning, unbiased user reviews, and sourcing.

IMI

Provides a platform for users to seek remote professional medical advice from the comfort of their homes.

InsureVite

Combines process automation solutions for the insurance business ecosystem with omnichannel apps to answer customers’ questions with zero downtime to increase efficiency, engage customers, and grow revenue.

Leng Keng Technology

Provides solutions for out-of-home advertising (OOH) media owners and brands to directly advertise to customers while reducing intermediary costs and quantifying key performance values.

Also Read: There is now a slice of Block 71 in downtown San Francisco

MoveUp

Facilitates training, onboarding, continuous development, and individual learning using the micro-learning approach with gamification. 

Origin Agriculture

Aims to meet local consumption requirements by harnessing the use of aeroponics technology to optimise the production of affordable and nutritious vegetables in a land-scarce nation.

Outside Technologies

A platform for users to help businesses and neighbours from communities in need with errands and daily inconveniences.

Otrafy

A SaaS platform that automates and digitalises the collection and transfer of food industry certification data. 

Quadusk

Builds tech solutions to modernise industrial operations for real estate and construction sectors in emerging markets.

RYTLE

Provides patented solutions for solving the last mile challenges faced by delivery companies across the globe. Solutions include an e-cargo bicycle and modular box-in-box storage to increase efficiency, lower costs, and reduce carbon emissions for last-mile fulfillment within Vietnam.

SenzeHub

An all-in-one digital health solution detecting health changes, collecting data, and helping seniors and patients identify potential dangers before or while health problems occur.

SGVenusFlytrap

A tropicalised version of temperate carnivorous plants to address challenges in the horticulture and educational industries with breakthrough research in plant tissue regeneration

Tobu

A data and document extractor that syncs with email inboxes and desktop software to automatically and seamlessly extract information.

TinggalMasak

A meal kit service focused on bringing healthy and nutritional meals to consumers at their convenience.

UICreative

A creative digital platform that provides ready-to-use graphic design solutions for freelance designers, full-time designers, and creative teams.

Ummacademy

Makes the medical learning process easier for dentists, doctors, and students by providing an accessible and affordable tech-based learning process.

Waffle

Helps offline businesses deliver the best customer experience, right from the point of sale to an ecosystem of interconnected tools to enable local businesses to make customer-centric business decisions.

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Image Credit: SEA Booster Programme

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The number of early-stage investment deals of less than US$500,000 increased by 11 per cent in 2020 amidst the crisis brought about by the pandemic, says a new report.

However, the year saw a rise in terms of both deal size and deal number in the second half.

The report, titled “The Vietnam Innovation and Tech Investment Report 2020”, was jointly published by early-stage VC firm Do Ventures and the Vietnam National Innovation Center (NIC).

Also Read: Naver, Sea, Vertex invest in Vietnamese VC firm Do Ventures’s US$50M fund I

The study further reveals that there was a sharp decline in both deal size and deal number of later-stage deals in 2020 in the country. The investments of US$10-50 million were the worst hit with a significant 60 per cent fall in the number of deals, followed by a 42 per cent drop in US$3-10 million-worth deals.

As per the findings of the report, the total amount of capital invested into local startups decreased by 48 per cent to US$451 million in 2020, mostly due to the absence of outsized deals that were already closed last year by later-stage companies.

Nevertheless, the total number of deals in the year fell only slightly by 17 per cent, as the country recorded 60 deals in H2, 2020, virtually equal to the same period in 2019.

After a swift decline at the onset of the pandemic, early financings began to return to past years’ levels. Investors ultimately closed roughly the same number of pre-A and A deals in 2020 as in 2019.

The scarcity of major exits over US$20 million contributed to the sharp decline of 66 per cent YoY in realised proceeds in 2020. Trade exit and secondary sales continued to play a significant role in liquidity generation. Liquidity from IPO remained limited.

After the slowdown during the first quarter, venture capital investing began to pick up from Q2 2020.

Payment and retail went on being the dominant sectors of large amount funding, thanks to their fundamental roles in the growth of the Internet economy.

The HRtech and proptech industries continued seeing rising interest, while edutech, medtech and SaaS have gently gained favour from drastic changes in consumer and business behaviours.

Also Read: How can corporate executives, startups, and VCs stay ahead of the innovation curve?

The interest in the Vietnam market was unwavering regardless of the global crisis, as the number of investors entering the country in 2020 went through only a minor drop compared to last year. The most active investors still came from Vietnam, South Korea and Singapore, while there was a remarkable fall in the number of Japanese investors.

Vu Quoc Huy, Director of the NIC, said: “NIC is researching and proposing to develop a legal environment for innovation in Vietnam, as well as other specific policies, programmes, and regulatory sandbox to support innovative businesses. The cooperation between NIC and Do Ventures in co-publishing the Vietnam Innovation and Tech Investment Report 2020 is to equip investors with information about the innovation and tech investment activities in Vietnam, thereby enhancing both domestic and foreign capital inflows.”

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Image Credit: Unsplash.

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If one has been keeping abreast of the news agenda, one would have seen organisations being plagued with numerous data breaches. Almost every industry has been hit with an incident of some sort from aviation, telecoms companies to furniture retailers – no one has been spared.

As a result, the question facing many startups and companies today is: Will I be next?

As companies big and small pivoted digitally in 2020, work from home has become the norm. While this practice afforded workers with the flexibility of remote working and maintain business continuity, it has also introduced a new set of cybersecurity challenges.

For example, Kaspersky’s telemetry revealed that the total number of remote desktop protocol attacks jumped from 93.1 million worldwide in February 2020 to 277.4 million in March 2020, a 197 per cent increase as countries around the region began to implement lockdown procedures.

This is just the tip of the iceberg – the shift to remote working, as well as other trends as to how five in 10 organisations in the region are reportedly still using outdated and unpatched software – all paint a picture of the vulnerabilities companies and startups face in today’s digital age.

To remedy this, a shift from a reactive “will it happen” to a proactive “when will it happen” approach is crucial, with hybrid work environments and home offices here to stay. Businesses, particularly startups and their preference for nomadic life, need to be on alert as data breaches will become more commonplace.

The challenging climate of data breaches

While every startup or company is frantically pushing to be the next big thing in tech, so too, should they accelerate their efforts at enhancing their cybersecurity posture.

Also Read: How can privacy-focussed apps step up amid a world of data breaches?

In most cases, a data breach exposes confidential, sensitive, or protected information to an unauthorised person. It can occur in various forms, with the most common ones include phishing, brute force attacks and malware.

In our view, these are just some of the trends we have observed when it comes to the challenges businesses and start-ups face when it comes to guarding against data breaches in the region:

• Lack of knowledge on personal data storage and processing laws: Many governments try to safeguard the security of their citizens, whilst Asia is still playing catch up with their Western counterparts on this front, all these laws still apply regardless of whether one has read them.
• Unpreparedness in the face of DDoS attacks: Distributed Denial of Service is an efficient way to down an internet resource. On the darknet, this service goes for cheap and therefore is quite affordable for competitors and cybercriminals who need them as cover for more sophisticated attempts.
• Poor employee awareness: Humans are usually the weak link in businesses. Attackers know full well to exploit this link and often use social engineering tricks to penetrate the corporate network or fish out confidential info.

How then, should businesses and start-ups go about developing a sensible cybersecurity posture and more importantly, how can a data breach affect them?

Why should businesses care about cybersecurity?

In today’s highly digitised societies, a business’s digital reputation counts for everything. According to our Digital Economy Reputation report, 49 per cent of social media users in the region have admitted that they will check the social media accounts of a brand before purchasing their goods and services. An additional 38 per cent also stopped using a company’s or brand’s products once they were embroiled in a crisis.

Clearly, an organisation’s reputation matters to consumers and the damage caused by a data breach goes beyond the depletion of public goodwill, but also financial as well. As of 2020, a breach costs an enterprise US$1.09m and a small to medium-sized business (SMB) US$101k, compared to US$1.41 million and US$108k respectively in 2019.

However, the risk can be managed by taking proactive action. Acting now will allow your organisation to be in a stronger position to recover should a breach happen.

Planning a tailor-made cybersecurity approach for your business

Today, one of the most important ingredients for any business looking to grow is flexibility. One can always opt for the most comprehensive cybersecurity solution, but this could lead to overkill and waste whatever precious resources one could have dedicated to powering business growth.

Also Read: 5 cybersecurity strategies every startup must know

On the other hand, not investing in a cybersecurity solution is a big no-no if you’re genuinely interested in growing your business sustainably. As a starting point, it is worth establishing a few good habits that are easy and free:

• Update software regularly, including router and other network device firmware;
• Keep an eye on the expiration date of security certificates and security software licenses;
• Make backup copies of data, and if your company automates the process, periodically check that it is being done correctly;
• Revoke access permissions from employees as soon as they are no longer required;
• Use security solutions to help monitor the health and status of your corporate infrastructure.

Having established your foundation, a business should look at which areas to prioritise by adopting a cybersecurity service model that can flex and accommodate the increased needs and capacity of the business.

It may be tempting in the short term to enjoy small cost savings in buying your own infrastructure. However, don’t forget to factor in maintenance cost, replacement, scalability and fault tolerance requirements.

Finally, when the business has entered a phase of aggressive expansion, one can consider implementing threat intelligence detection (proactive threat hunting) to their cybersecurity arsenal. Driven by continuous machine learning, it can save IT security teams resources for threat analysis, investigation and response.

An example would be Kaspersky’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) which contains an outsourced security operations centre that does not require specialised threat hunting and incident analysis skills from internal teams.

Cyber security now part and parcel of a business’s growth strategy however, it doesn’t have to be daunting – one should not face it alone. The cybersecurity community is here to help and offer advice and assistance whenever you are ready.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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

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The recent Earth Day celebration in late April helped to focus minds in financial services by providing business leaders with an opportunity to communicate to shareholders, and the market at large, their vision for sustainability over the coming decade. 

At around the same time, I was participating as a speaker on a panel in Singapore alongside the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Tribe Accelerator, and the Singapore Fintech Association (SFA).

As we shared our thoughts on macro trends in green finance and fintech, it became apparent that one of the questions coming up time and again was the need to balance and bridge sustainability alongside profitability (after all, corporations are for-profit enterprises and not charities).

The Financial Times, in an article this week, highlighted the challenge this poses for much of the market and global economy as we chart a path to net zero.

Finance is laser focused on green

While all stakeholders in the sector have their part to play in pushing the convergence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles in financial services, the approach taken varies depending on where you are sitting: as the technology provider, financial institution or bank, government/regulator, or something else entirely.

In the last few years, there’s no doubt we’ve seen a macro trend towards green fintech as a partnership between technology companies and financial institutions.

Also Read: The evolution from open banking to open finance

Banks are realising they have a responsibility to be able to help in tracking the greenness of a given project, investment or transaction as climate change is recognised as fact, not fiction. 

With more key players acting towards green and sustainability, a new norm is observed where sustainable companies are profitable — and to be profitable, companies have to be sustainable.

It is in this space that I think technology has a key role to play, including delivering on greater democratisation of finance and improving access for all. 

But here’s a key point: the greatest impact is only possible through technology platforms partnering with the existing financial institutions, which already have millions of users.

Fintech has arguably been at the forefront of reducing costs, improving efficiencies, and enabling greater access to markets — whether that’s through trade clearing and settlement, ESG tracking, or digital bond issuance.

But regulators, too, must do their part.

Regulators are stepping up

In Singapore, banks have to report to MAS so that it can conduct overall assessments of financial stability with regards to environmental or climate risks. 

I know from my conversations with them that MAS is focused on how to attract green finance to Singapore, and how to position themselves as leading green finance centres.

Encouraging the industry to collaborate or pilot technology solutions to solve some of the major challenges in finance remains an important mandate for any central bank. Bridging private sector sustainability with profitability is an area where regulators have a unique role to play.

This is because regulators are unique in their ability to provide grants and co-funding projects, whether it’s proof of concepts (POCs) or actual implementations, that help private businesses working towards ESG solutions to succeed.

Adopting new technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) to better monitor and track the performance of a green project, bond or loan is an area many private firms will need to look at implementing to better monitor their supply chains. 

Also Read: How can fintech help agriculture

Currently, less than 0.3 per cent of all bond financing is green, with insufficient efforts leading to a US$2.6 trillion annual funding deficit towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.

This gap stems from the absence of an efficient common data infrastructure as a nexus between the financial industry and ESG efforts, with often-fragmented data exacerbated by the lack of transparency in impact reporting and usage of proceeds.

Enter the nimble fintech

In the same way fintech companies contributed to addressing problems of financial inclusion for SMEs and underserved communities in the past decade, they have now set their sights on helping financial institutions transition to more sustainable operations.

Even something like the funding of solar panels on a small factory can be made more affordable and accessible through new technology that today’s fintech are building.

Whether it’s on the data side, blockchain, or IoT that measures and verifies said data, fintech is figuring out how to apply it to commercial green use cases.

Today, when we talk about sustainability, the stakeholders are very wide — it’s not just the banks, it’s also the investment companies, the sovereign wealth funds, every foundation, family office, and next generation wealth manager. 

Even the most profitable companies in the world, who don’t need to do any of this in order to become more profitable, are still looking at their environmental commitments and responsibilities.

Also Read: Sustainability: the new business reality

Based on the response I’m seeing from all stakeholders today, I believe there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future of green fintech.

We’re seeing increased interest from the private sector coming in, driven by the leadership of our various sovereign wealth funds like Temasek, who just declared that they’re going to be 100 per cent green.

My hope is that regulators, investors, and institutions continue to support the next generation of financial infrastructure that is being built by risk-taking fintech entrepreneurs. 

By future-proofing our financial market infrastructure for a greener decade, financial incentives or penalties can be more easily programmed towards achieving sustainable performance targets applicable to different ESG financing instruments across bonds, loans, and renewable energy certificates. 

If we get it right as an industry that comes together, I’m convinced the ESG financing gap will be bridged by 2030 — and I look forward to contributing to this green fintech revolution in my own small way.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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

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(This article has been updated with more details about the trends in the industry and the impact of COVID-19 on Eezee)

Eezee, a Singapore-based online B2B marketplace for industrial hardware and supplies, has received an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A round led by Wavemaker Partners.

Other investors in the round include January Capital, the Pags Group, the family office of Bain Capital’s Stephen Pagliuca, and existing investor Insignia Ventures.

Along with this equity round, Eezee also secured an undisclosed debt facility from Polaris, the strategic partnerships arm of Goldbell Financial Services.

Also Read: Infightings, quitting of key people didn’t deter this entrepreneur from realising his dream

Co-founder and CEO Logan Tan told e27 that Eezee will use the fresh capital to double down the business development effort to get wider market adoption especially within Singapore.

“We’re also looking for our first business development hire on the ground within Philippines and Indonesia,” he added.

Established in 2017 by Logan Tan, Terence Goh, and Jasper Yap, Eezee enables businesses to make small value purchases on industrial supplies such as safety gloves and helmets without the hassle of bureaucratic procurement processes and paperwork.

For buyers, Eezee acts as an online marketplace that consolidates a range of brands and products, so they can compare the prices of goods and suppliers. Its catalogue includes safety shoes, safety glasses, safety goggles, safety harness, personal protective equipment, power tools and hardware.

As for sellers, the platform helps them to manage sales orders and categorise their stock, as well as source other items from other suppliers when requested to by their customers.

“Our platform elevates business processes by integrating with ERPs such as SAP Ariba, Oracle and Coupa, thus enabling businesses remain compliant with governance objectives in an accelerated manner. In 2020, our partnership with Shell to digitalise procurement delivered 20per cent cost savings from integration, thus drastically reducing man hours while offering a wide range of competitively priced products on their marketplace,” he said in a press statement.

Logan said that the firm also delivers products outside of Singapore. “Some of our top countries are Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. We have some business dealings regionally (majority of our exports goes to regional with the top three countries dominating 60 per cent of our exports). We also ship our products beyond regional but currently very fragmented.”

The startup recently partnered with the Singapore government to enable its 150,000 civil servants to procure items directly from the platform.

Also Read: Singapore’s B2B marketplace Eezee raises funding from Insignia for Asia expansion

Eezee’s Chief Commercial Officer Shawn Seet shared: “Eezee is not just a marketplace — we’re an ecosystem. International business buyers use us as we provide an unparalleled procurement experience. Suppliers partner with us as they renew their lifespan by integrating with us to reach customers they could never serve. The potential of this connectivity is limitless.”

Over the past four years, Eezee has developed an effective template for driving digitalisation of the procurement process that they aim to bring to the rest of the region.

In September 2019, Eezee had bagged an undisclosed sum in seed funding from Insignia Ventures for business expansion.

Impact of COVID-19

According to Logan, COVID-19 has had a positive impact on the business. When the pandemic first hit, Eezee’s order volume jumped due to the rise of demand for PPE (personal protective equipment) kits and masks, etc.

“We then started to see significant interest from our clients to utilise the platform and they are more receptive to digital solutions. The panic purchases and spike in volume eventually fades away with more stable growth MoM. Overall, there’s positive impact on our business,” he remarked.

Trends

Logan is seeing a seeing a shift in behaviours towards B2B digital commerce, not just for industrial supplies but across various categories such as F&B, FMCG and many more.

“Although the shift is still in a very early phase, there’s positive signs that we have secured major clients that are very supportive of our journey. The world gets more and more connected, businesses will follow suit as well,” he said.

“My personal belief is that as the consumer world gets digitalised, businesses will follow suit. Due to the ever-growing digital gaps between the consumer and business world, it’s inevitable that the digital technology will gain a significant footing into the business world,” he concluded.
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Image Credit: Eezee

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Fortuna Cools, a Philippine startup seeking to find an alternative to plastics, has secured a seed investment round led by ADB Ventures, the impact investment arm of Asian Development Bank, and Katapult Ocean Fund.

Pasudeco Development Corporation, the Manila Angel Investors Network, she1k, and Nardo Holdings, also joined the round.

The financial terms were not disclosed.

Fortuna Cools will use the capital to grow its sales and engineering teams, as well as finance its higher production volumes to reduce unit costs and benefit more farmers, co-founder and CEO David Cutler told e27.

Also Read: This Indian startup makes cutlery using sugarcane waste

Started in 2018 by Cutler and Tamara Mekler, Fortuna Cools began working on “up-cycled, high-performance” coolers in the archipelago, alongside small-scale agricultural communities and the NGO ‘Rare‘. These coolers were designed to help fishermen preserve their catch without relying on fragile Styrofoam boxes.

According to Cutler, Fortuna Cools was soon inundated with requests for sustainable, long-lasting coolers from different sectors and locations.

“We are commercialising coolers. Our first product, the Fortuna Coconut Cooler, is available today in the Philippines as a B2B product for fresh food packaging and the transport of perishable goods,” he shared. “It is marketed to major food distributors, farmer cooperatives, and grocery stores in Southeast Asia.

Cutler said the prices are already competitive with many existing insulated packaging options, with significant discounts available at higher volumes.

The startup will soon launch its second product, the Nutshell Cooler, as an eco-conscious consumer product in key international markets. It seeks to fill a glaring gap in an eco-conscious market without any eco-friendly options.

“The Nutshell Cooler is built with our same natural fibre insulation that we’ve developed over the past few years. But there are various differences in the design to make it suitable for outdoor recreation and casual use (e.g. trip to the beach, weekend getaway, even grocery shopping),” he explained.

A portion of the capital just raised will be go into the launching of Nutshell Cooler, he said.

“Material innovation is key to solving the plastic waste problem in our oceans,” said Ross Brooks, Investment Manager at Katapult Ocean. “Fortuna’s nature-based insulation solution not only aims to replace plastic foam, but in doing so will provide communities with a more robust and lower cost cold storage solution. Fortuna’s solution has the potential to create a positive impact in both environmental and social domains.”

Also Read: Impact-tech investor ADB Ventures in talks to raise US$100M debt fund

“We hear the demand for less plastic waste among everyone from fish traders to sunbathers, while small-scale coconut farmers have no choice today but to burn their piles of leftover husks. We are proud that positive impact is built into every fibre we use,” Cutler said.

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Image Credit: Fortuna Cools

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According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), more than half of the world’s population today is below 30. Despite that, there is a growing divide between banks and the younger generation.

More than 45 per cent of respondents to WEF’s Global Shapers survey disagreed with the statement that they trusted banks to be fair and honest.

Amidst this distrust, how can banks regain the trust of the next generation of consumers? The answer lies in how they approach storing the financial data of their customers. Hampered by the need to adhere to strict regulations regarding the exchange of such data, banks previously chose to store them in silos.

However, times have changed.

Powered by an open ecosystem where APIs facilitated the exchange of digital financial data across platforms, new-age fintech companies are now able to offer better financial products for their customers.

Users duly responded to a more convenient and personalised experience by switching to the services of these disruptors.

Change in perception

Having witnessed the success these companies derived from an open API platform, banks in Europe and North America soon took a page out of their playbook and decided to embrace it.

The move saw banks unlock their vaults of consumer financial data. With an open ecosystem where banks could freely exchange information such as transaction and income history with one another, they began to see the advantages – they were understanding their customers better.

With the relative success of open banking in the West, regulators within Southeast Asia started to follow suit. 

Also Read: Banking on a green future of finance: How to bridge sustainability and profitability

The Indonesian financial services authority (Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, OJK) released an open API framework detailing the rollout of a common API gateway for banks and other financial institutions to exchange financial data.

Collaborate to win

Amidst the talk about open APIs and the open banking ecosystem, what tangible benefits does it bring for banks? Firstly, a more engaging experience to satisfy the notoriously short attention span of younger consumers.

With APIs instantly aggregating consumer data from different financial platforms, banks can verify the identity and financial history of their potential customer within seconds.

This allows for the pre-filling of registration forms, slashing the time needed to onboard a customer. Besides, banks can streamline their loan approval process and offer loans faster, without compromising on default rates.

This is a result of APIs being able to aggregate financial data from different platforms. With these data, banks are able to generate a comprehensive credit score for individual borrowers, allowing them to accurately determine their ability to repay.

Also Read: Open Banking: why this risky pursuit is the key to accelerating Fintech innovation

Increased revenue

Apart from offering a better experience for customers and lowering the default rates on loans, open APIs also pave the way for the creation of new products. Banks can leverage the increased knowledge of their customers to offer specific services as part of upselling or cross-selling efforts. 

For example, a customer who took out a property mortgage could be offered a property insurance plan at a competitive premium specific to his income and credit history.

This was possible because open APIs allowed the bank to verify their income and credit history across different platforms before generating a risk-adjusted premium.

On average, it takes several weeks for a personal loan to be fully processed by banks. In the same period of time, one can easily get approval for a loan at an alternative lending platform. This has forced banks to rethink how they approach the approval of loans.

Previously, they wasted valuable time and resources retrieving physical financial documents (such as past income statements) from customers and searching the web for their credit report.

However, with an open banking ecosystem, banks can easily access the necessary information through a shared API gateway, allowing them to approve loans within minutes. Amidst the numerous benefits open banking can provide for banks, what effect does it have on the bottom line?

A report by Accenture has found that banks that embrace open banking will profit from a potential revenue uplift of 20 per cent, whereas those failing to do so risk losing 30 per cent to disruptive industry players such as fintech companies by 2020.

Winners innovate

It is no secret fintech companies are revolutionising the future of financial services, providing easy-to-use and personalised products at a fraction of those offered by incumbents such as banks.

The enabler of their success? Open APIs built by open banking platforms such as Finantier, which work with the leading banks in Indonesia to provide custom-built APIs for them. By connecting them to the open banking ecosystem, we enable them to gain an edge over their competitors who still operate in silos.

Also Read: How startups can aid Southeast Asia’s Open Banking landscape

Banks and innovation do not typically complement each other. For these century-old institutions, the choice to adopt new technologies at the expense of legacy ones can be difficult due to the complexity of these decades-old infrastructures and the inertia they create.

However, it is no longer a choice. The mantra of “innovate or die” represents the harsh reality of the financial services sector today. Banks, like everyone else, will be forced to innovate.

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This post was originally published on Finantier’s blog.

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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The fairly young population of Southeast Asian countries and their good level of education make them excellent members of the regional workforce. Add to this their reputation of hard work and adaptability.

Despite the perceived inherent advantages, employees are not going to magically appear at a company and start working just like everyone else does. They also need to undergo training, and the process is unlikely to proceed without some challenges along the way.

Discussed below are some of the leading concerns businesses that operate in Southeast Asia are likely to face when it comes to hiring and training employees. They may not be critical factors that will immediately drive away employers, but it pays to know them and the corresponding solutions to avoid problems.

Digital transformation

The challenge of bringing employees aboard the digital transformation ship is not exclusive to ASEAN economies. However, it may surprise some to know that most ASEAN firms admit to not being adaptable enough.

An SAP-commissioned Oxford Economics survey of 600 senior executives in key economies across ASEAN suggests that Southeast Asian companies know the ways towards digital transformation, but they are not as capable of adapting as they would have preferred.

The survey respondents were asked what hindered them from taking advantage of technology, digitalisation, and automation, in particular, to improve their operations and business outcomes.

Also Read: The right framework and training methods can minimise attrition rates among startup employees

Some of their top responses were as follows: lack of technology for analytics (43 per cent), lack of capable and motivated workforce (40 per cent), lack of adequate data (38 per cent), and difficulty scaling for growth (33 per cent).

These responses show how many organisations still struggle with the goal of becoming fully digital to become more agile and adaptable to market changes. These also infer how many still hesitate to invest in digital transformation and exert enough effort to expedite digitalisation.

Digital transformation is not as easy as it seems even for Southeast Asia’s relatively young working population. However, with the right employee training programs, adapting to the increasingly digitised modern economy is not too tall an order to take.

A thoughtfully designed training plan, together with tech-driven tools and systems, can easily address the challenges of training employees to work well with the ongoing digital transformation efforts of ASEAN companies.

Job-skill mismatch

One of the notable challenges in training employees is the apparent mismatch between jobs and skills. There are many potential employees across Southeast Asia, but their set of skills may not be best suited for the vacancies.

An International Labor Organization (ILO) report shows the extent of job mismatch in several Southeast Asian countries. In Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, the qualification mismatch average at around 0.4.

Some 40 per cent of job applicants in these countries are reportedly underqualified or overqualified for the available job positions.

This job-skill mismatch is an employee training problem as it makes employees less enthusiastic about training. Consequently, they become less productive and less engaged in the workplace. As the ILO describes the impact of mismatches, “skills mismatch has negative consequences for productivity and competitiveness.”

It would be extremely challenging to motivate employees who consider themselves detached from their functions and incompatible with the positions they are occupying. To address skill mismatch and raise employee motivation, it may be necessary to do reassignments or provide more training to make it easier for employees to adjust to their functions.

Also Read: The right framework and training methods can minimise attrition rates among startup employees

Moreover, there’s difficulty in dealing with overqualified employees. They may not find the training useful, or they may regard it as cumbersome given that they are doing a job that they deem to be beneath their qualification and expected pay grade.

Hectic schedules

Working hours in many ASEAN countries are relatively long. According to numbers from Statista, Thailand has a 42.3-hour workweek. Employees in the Philippines work 41.7 hours per week on average.

Vietnam, on the other hand, has a 41.2-hour workweek. Indonesia’s 38.2 hours may be low compared to its ASEAN peers, but it is still higher than the global average for OECD countries at 33.5 hours.

With these long working hours, it would be difficult to squeeze training sessions in. It is challenging to encourage employees to learn more skills or prepare to advance their position within the company when they are already spending a lot of their time at work and are expected to complete a long list of tasks.

One way to deal with this challenge is to consider remote training whenever possible. The pandemic has shown that remote work works. There are no compelling reasons to deliberately avoid virtual training sessions. It can save time and the use of resources, plus the sessions can be recorded so anyone can go back to them if ever they forget something or they need clarifications.

Dispersed workforce

Many ASEAN businesses operate in multiple locations. As a result, training sessions can be quite a hassle. It does not only raise the challenge of distance or lack of physical interaction. It also creates opportunities for culture clashes,

Southeast Asian employees are as diverse as they can get when it comes to work attitude. From the sociable to the stubborn lone wolves, they vary greatly and form a colourful spectrum too vibrant to be tamed or put in a single category.

Also Read: In your journey to attain great CX, how much are you prioritising a great employee experience (EX)?

To address issues that may stem from diversity and geographical barriers, it helps to clearly lay down the training goals from the get-go. Doing this makes it easy for everyone to establish expectations and adjust themselves to the training and the instructor.

Additionally, it is advisable to use live online platforms or spaces to build a community where employees can interact and engage with other employees. Also, take advantage of social media.

Learning consultant Dan Steer shared how social media can be useful in employee training during a session at the Association for Talent Development International Conference & Exposition. Steer says that social media should be used before, during, and after the training sessions to achieve its best impact.

Nothing too hard to overcome

The Southeast Asian economy is still at its younger stages and was experiencing enviable healthy growth before the pandemic struck. However, COVID-19 disruption has made it amply clear that ASEAN countries have a lot of room for improvement.

They can become more resilient and adaptable particularly when it comes to the labour market by addressing the jobs-skills mismatch, giving the digital transformation a harder push, and addressing the effects of long working hours and workforce dispersion on employee training.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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

Image: Unsplash

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