Bangladeshi transport-tech startup Shuttle has announced raising US$1.5 million in new funding led by South Asia Tech, a growth-stage VC fund focused on logistics and e-commerce startups in the region.

State-run VC fund Startup Bangladesh, investors from Bangladesh Angels Network (BAN), and existing backers, including Accelerating Asia, participated.

The new round brings Shuttle’s total investment to date to US$2.5 million.

Also Read: Bangladesh’s ride-sharing, bus ticket booking app Shohoz raises funding

“The new funding will help us expand our footprint across the country through further investments in tech, product and team,” said Shuttle’s Co-Founder and CEO Reyasat Chowdhury.

Shuttle started its journey in 2018 with pre-seed capital from Robi Axiata.

A ride-hailing startup, Shuttle claims it charges less than one-third the price of regular ride-sharing by clubbing four to ten people in sedans and minivans.

After its initial success with providing women-only services, Shuttle later added unisex and B2B offerings to bring convenient and affordable daily commutes for middle-income people in Bangladesh.

More than 30,000 university students and office-goers are registered on the platform, with the majority being women. The company has also worked with over 50 organisations (B2B clients), including the largest multinational companies.

The firm is set to launch a new service, Shuttle for School, for students in Dhaka.

The startup has a total addressable market of US$13.5 billion in Bangladesh.

Also Read: Earned wage access startup wagely nets US$8.3M pre-Series A to grow in Bangladesh

Shuttle’s other investors are SBK Tech Ventures, South Korean VC firm The Ventures, the BAN, and local/global angels.

In addition, the company also received an impact-matching grant from Biniyog Briddhi, a public-private development partnership between the Embassy of Switzerland in Bangladesh, Roots of Impact, and LightCastle Partners.

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There are many ways an organisation can promote innovation to serve their customers, and intrapreneurship is one that SC Ventures choose to champion.

“The concept of intrapreneurship is anchored in our belief that solutions to seemingly intractable customer challenges often reside within the bank’s workforce itself. No one is more well-placed to solve these challenges than our employees; they work closely with customers and clients daily, and as a result, have a deep understanding of needs,” explains Alex Manson, Head of SC Ventures, in an email to e27.

“However, it isn’t always easy to bring these ideas to life and this is something that intrapreneurship addresses directly. With intrapreneurship, we are putting our people and their ideas first, providing them with everything from mentorship to capital, to help bring these concepts to fruition. Intrapreneurship is also Standard Chartered’s commitment to fast-tracking innovation from within — allowing employees to tap into the bank’s significant resources to sandbox and scale their projects.”

To realise this vision, the company is running the SC Ventures FinTech Bridge, a platform that was initially developed to facilitate the sourcing of tech solutions within Standard Chartered. Designed to bridge the disconnect between startups, experts, and corporates, according to Manson, the programme is now a borderless community that is open to portfolio companies as well as aspiring founders in Standard Chartered.

Since its inception in 2018, the platform has seen over 2,800 members; 34 challenges seeking tech solutions, expertise, or investors; 20 pitches in the Pitch Arena; and more than 140 connections made.

In this interview, Manson explains to e27 how SC Ventures implement intrapreneurship within its organisation and the kind of opportunities it is looking for in 2023.

Also Read: Ascend Vietnam Ventures’s early-stage fund AVV Alpha exceeds US$50M target

A deeper dig into intrapreneurship

Manson explains further about the intrapreneurship model that SC Ventures implemented, starting from the reason behind its founding.

“Our intrapreneurship model is designed to empower employees to solve problems, improve the status quo, and to create new business models. The programme is standardised and modular so business and functional leaders can easily engage with the Intrapreneurship Programme – and engagement of Intrapreneurs and business/functional sponsors speaks to the success of the programme,” he says.

“For Intrapreneurs who are looking to create a new business, our model is designed to ensure that our potential founders are given the wherewithal to endure uncertainties and remain resilient in the global economy. SC Ventures ensures that the innovations pioneered by our Intrapreneur Venture Leads will lay the foundation of the new economy,” he continues.

The process of participating in the programme is as follows:

“Our FinTech Bridge programme forms a core tenet of our intrapreneurship model, as we continuously welcome new ideas by having challenges and encouraging individuals and teams to submit their proposals on an ad-hoc basis,” Manson explains.

Once a proposal is submitted to the SC Ventures FinTech Bridge, the intrapreneur induction process kicks off. Individuals or teams with interesting solutions to an existing problem statement are put through a bootcamp to prepare them for a panel pitch. This bootcamp includes rigorous rounds of refinement, research, validation, wireframing, and prototyping processes which will be incorporated into the final panel pitch.

Also Read: How Signal Ventures aims to sail towards new opportunities in global maritime tech scene

Prior to their panel pitch, successful candidates will gain access to SC Ventures’ coaches. Following the pitch, they will have access to additional resources beyond just funding, such as Incubation Coaches and Industry Experts.

A pitch is being reviewed based on the following indicators:
– Does the idea solve a problem for the bank (internally) or the wider industry (externally)?
– Is the idea both feasible and viable?
– Is the idea crazy? Does it have the potential to disrupt the sector?
– What will the intrapreneur learn from this programme? Are they highly committed and engaged?

It is important to note that fulfilling just one of these criteria is enough for an idea to be accepted into the programme. Upon completion of the curriculum, the intrapreneur’s pitch is assessed using the same standards applied to any startup or funding pitch.

The programme has developed successful case studies such as Cardspal, a one-stop daily lifestyle app operating in Singapore.

But like many other initiatives, implementing entrepreneurship in an organisation comes with its own challenges.

“More often than not, intrapreneurship programmes within big organisations fail because of a lack of discipline and structure – the kind that SC Ventures brings to the table. Aside from bringing bank-level expertise and resources to aspiring intrapreneurs, we provide intrapreneurs with certified coaches that guide them through a standardised journey with a proven, tried-and-tested methodology that ultimately results in a VC-ready pitch,” Manson explains.

“Our programme is both standardised and modular, which means that we can flex, experiment and pivot as we learn and the programme evolves. With a more structured approach to managing the programme, we have the ability to look at each aspect of the programme and enhance it.”

Also Read: SEA’s VC landscape will soon get more specialised, says ADB Ventures

What is next for SC Ventures

When asked about what is next for SC Ventures, Manson starts by explaining the organisation’s stance on new, exciting verticals such as Web3.

“SC Ventures sees Web3 as the frontier of the new economy and today, we have several intrapreneurs in our programme tackling the challenges and developing solutions in this space. As the ecosystem surrounding blockchain, crypto, non-fungible tokens, and other digital assets continues to evolve, we have seen promising new ideas revolving around the future of these concepts,” he says.

“In general, we don’t want to narrow our focus on a specific type of innovation and look only at on-trend solutions and technologies. By doing that, we would blind ourselves to opportunities that may come from other areas.”

As the year 2022 draws to a close, Manson also shares plans for the next year.

“We intend to double down on our Intrapreneurship Programme, refining the curriculum to be even more user- and outcome-focused. We want to ensure that the employees involved have a fantastic experience, learn exceptionally valuable skills and feel rewarded for having the courage to join the programme and complete the process,” he explains.

“For 2023 onwards, SC Ventures is exploring offering Intrapreneurship-as-a-Service to Standard Chartered’s clients. We currently have one Proof-of-Concept (PoC) in action and will be kicking off the second in November 2022. Thus far, the first PoC has received excellent feedback from the client and we’re looking to extend this service to more, effectively inculcating a culture of deeper collaboration, co-creation and innovation in the wider financial services sector,” he closes.

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The festive season is one of the busiest times for businesses as consumers come out in full swing to shop for great deals.

As Asia Pacific’s e-commerce sales are expected to double nearly by 2025, reaching US$2 trillion, it is clear that more and more consumers have grown accustomed to shopping online, thanks to high internet penetration rates. The end-of-year shopping season in 2021 saw a 260 per cent jump in sales in the lead-up to Single’s Day in October.

Simultaneously, the booming industry is also attracting fraudsters looking to take advantage of a growing sector.

Online payment fraud losses are expected to exceed US$206 billion over the next five years, driven mainly by identity fraud. With the spike in shopping during festive online seasons, fraudulent actors will likely target e-commerce merchants to capitalise on the increase in sales.

How fraudsters take advantage of the holidays

There is a rise in sophisticated fraud tactics, such as promotion abuse, when fraudsters take advantage of limited-time offers by misrepresenting themselves, often by creating multiple accounts. Promotion abuse can cause significant losses to retailers, with more than half of e-commerce companies experiencing increased promotion abuse. This can be particularly impactful during festive seasons when brands are more likely to run promotions.

Other common fraud attacks, particularly during the festive seasons, include account takeover attacks and chargeback fraud. Takeover attacks refer to instances where a cybercriminal accesses a consumer’s login details and takes over an account, using it to make fraudulent transactions and purchases.

Chargeback fraud, on the other hand, is when consumers fraudulently attempt to secure a refund using the chargeback process. Instead of contacting the merchant directly for a refund, consumers dispute the transaction with their bank, thus initiating the chargeback process.

Also Read: What the payments industry should consider when preparing for the holiday season

Merchants often have limited tools to capture tell-tale signs like synthetic IDs, IP addresses, and even how long an email has been in use. These are crucial factors for determining whether the consumer is genuine. Investing in fraud prevention technology is more critical than ever, protecting merchants from excessive losses.

The effects of fraud can be devastating for businesses, from reputational costs to loss in revenue and return on marketing dollars. It is safe to say that fraud is more than just lost revenue; the time is now for businesses to ramp up their security measures.

Keeping you and your customers safe

The threat landscape will only grow increasingly complex; businesses need to better align their defences against the speed of changing fraud techniques. In the case of fraud, prevention is better than mitigation.

Promotion abuse cases can be cut down dramatically when businesses follow stringent Know Your Customer (KYC) guidelines and verify new accounts in real time.

This involves validating the data entered during the sign-up process, from email addresses to phone numbers and physical addresses, followed by validating the relationships between that data and implementing additional verifications.

These additional steps risk creating friction points in a legitimate customer’s online shopping experience, which can drive cart abandonment. KYC can be combined with other solutions to identify genuine customers seamlessly.

Digital identity verification, driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning, evaluates multiple identity elements and if they’re linked to a genuine person. This happens quickly, in the background, without impacting the consumer experience. These tools also offer a more accurate analysis rate, resulting in fewer false positives of fraud for legitimate customers.

The APAC e-commerce industry is only going to continue its growth trajectory. For merchants looking to remain competitive and provide great customer experiences, they must shore up their fraud capabilities while staving off fraudsters, all without sacrificing the seamless experience consumers expect from brands when shopping online.

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Clearbot, a Hong Kong-based robot-as-a-service company focusing on the marine sector, has closed an undisclosed seed funding round with Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund and Gobi Ventures.

Earth Venture Capital, Asia Sustainability Angels, and CarbonX Capital also co-invested.

The startup will use the funds for product development and R&D to improve operational efficiency in different environmental conditions and expand further into Southeast Asia.

Also Read: ‘Climate tech: SEA needs more time to improve startup quality, attract capital’, says Earth VC’s Tien Nguyen

Clearbot will also invest in research to turn data into insights for clients in compliance with ESG standards, allowing them to optimise their business practices for sustainable development in the marine sector.

Established in 2020, Clearbot provides an AI-powered all-electric and self-driving robot which automates pollution recovery, surveillance and rescue, and goods delivery in urban waterways intelligently and without manpower.

The data obtained from Clearbot will help companies and governments identify potential areas of improvement within their operations and help them develop a deeper understanding of their current performance to make informed decisions on how to improve their business in the future.

Combining autonomous navigation with data analytics and on-demand solutions, the startup has developed the first autonomous electric vessel capable of operating autonomously across multiple waterways at unprecedented speed and efficiency.

The startup’s latest Clearbot Neo model, created with Razer Inc., is available in Hong Kong and India, with more than ten bots already operating in these regions.

Also Read: There’s a mismatch of investment and entrepreneur focus in SEA’s climate tech: Steve Melhuish

“Civilisation thrives aside the water flows, which are our resourceful rivers and oceans. But we are destroying and polluting them with millions of tons of plastics and garbage every year. As 95 per cent of plastic in our ocean is transported by ten major rivers, eight of which are in Asia. The war against climate change cannot miss the operations towards ocean technology,” Linh Nguyen, General Partner of Earth Venture Capital,” said Linh Nguyen, General Partner of Earth Venture Capital.

“As the founders are both Gen Z, Clearbot is truly created by and for the next generation, who will be at the frontier in our battle against climate change,” Nguyen added.

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In the first piece of this three-part series, I proposed areas of action that a business can focus on to kickstart its decarbonisation journey. However, if you can’t act because you haven’t found the perfect solutions to help your business “go green”, it may be time to switch from browsing to building mode.

First, stop waiting for the perfect find to roll around. It likely doesn’t exist, so don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good enough”. Expand your search criteria and get creative in the face of scarcity.

Are there no good options, or have you just not found them? So many tech solutions exist in the market today. Still, they may be marketed for a different industry, be in another geographical region, or have terrible SEO rendering them tough to find. 

If in doubt, ask an expert who understands the space, and often solutions will appear. When I ran an open innovation programme to decarbonise the shipping industry, we found exciting solutions in other sectors that could solve marine challenges but hadn’t even considered maritime as a target client base – now they have new product lines and investors because we showed them the potential use-case for shipping.

At SecondMuse, our team running The Incubation Network finds hidden-gem solutions to the plastic pollution problem in every Southeast Asian market we work in because we engage communities at the grassroots level, engage entrepreneur support organisations as partners, and understand that alone we don’t have the answers, but collectively we can see farther.

A hands-on approach for bottom-up solutions

If, even after broadening your horizons, the solutions you find still come up short, consider engaging the ones who come close and help them get over the line.

Also Read: How carbon in the metaverse can help solve the real-world climate crisis

At times, the technology is sound, but the business model doesn’t fit your needs, or there is some other (completely valid) barrier to adoption. We as a society have to invest in understanding and overcoming these adoption gaps just as much as we invest in developing new innovations and technology.

Regular businesses can play a huge role in bridging these gaps by becoming customers and partners of the best solutions and engaging with or advising the less ideal ones to make them more business-friendly.

Think of how powerful (and useful) it can be to give these climate solutions specific feedback, suggest other possibilities, and even brainstorm better ways forward. Simply saying “no” without any of these other steps doesn’t serve anyone: you still don’t have your solution, and the ones you’ve spent time finding + vetting have no clue how to get better.

Where are the climate solution gaps?

Having reviewed hundreds of startups and worked with close to a dozen corporations to craft partnerships that lower their carbon footprint, I have seen specific friction points come up again and again.

Yet they aren’t entirely impossible, so here are some common gaps I’ve seen and ideas for working through them:

Cost

The clean green solution is often more expensive than the status quo, a concept Bill Gates calls the green premium. How do you bring that down? It depends on what is driving the costs, but unless the problem is the technology (too early = unreliable or too expensive), there is often a way around it. 

If it’s the cost-per-unit, can you work with customers to produce in volumes they can afford or find like-minded businesses to join their adoption journey to reduce costs for all?

Also Read: How the ‘Paris agreement’ for plastic is accelerating climate justice in SEA

If it’s a CAPEX issue, could switching to a subscription model, getting a supplier with friendlier payment terms, or finding a financial partner that enables instalments/payment plans to help make this more affordable to adopt?

Convenience

Modern life has been optimised for making everything ready to use, always available, and easy to dispose of; it’s incredibly wasteful but straightforward, so more environmentally friendly options (e.g. reuse/refill models instead of single-use) can feel like too much effort by comparison.

How do you make it easy for businesses or consumers to adopt? Anything that reduces the steps required is reasonable.

In software, you see this with interoperability (instead of forcing customers to adopt new processes or dashboards, ingest the data they have as is and connect everything with APIs); with physical products or consumer choices, consider automatically latching the new desired behaviour onto an existing built-in habit/norm, changing the default choice to the one you want (so they need to opt-out instead of opting-in), or putting a small cost to the undesired behaviour (people take fewer plastic bags when they see they’re being charged 10 cents for one).

Context

Sometimes, engineers create technically marvellous products but are disconnected from the realities of operation. If you see a solution that technically solves the problem but doesn’t fit your commercial or operational models, it provides the context required to achieve a better design.

Many times, the founders you’ll work with are open to adjusting if they can see that working with you opens up a larger opportunity to work with many others in the same sector.

Final thoughts

These are just some of the gaps you’ll find in the market, and even though you work to address them, you may still find yourself falling short of sustainability targets. The climate crisis is one of great complexity: ultimately, we don’t just need better solutions; we need better systems.

In the final part of this three-piece series, I’ll explore how we can take bigger-picture climate action that transcends these steps at the individual or entrepreneurial level.

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41 VCs commit to invest US$1.5B in VN startups by 2025
The investors include Altara Ventures, Golden Gate, Antler, Beenext, Cocoon Capital, and VinaCapital; As per DealStreetAsia research, local firms raised US$2.5B in 2021 compared to nearly US$380M in 2020.

Singapore’s crypto firm Amber raises US$300M Series C
The investors include Fenbushi Capital, unnamed crypto-native investors and family offices; The funding comes after it was reported earlier this month that Amber Group laid off “hundreds” of staff.

Alibaba co-founder in talks to offload stake worth US$260M in firm
The shares are equal to nearly 8% of Joseph Tsai’s total assets in the Chinese firm; Tsai is the third-largest shareholder after Japanese investor SoftBank and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma.

Amazon faces US$280M suit from Vietnamese manufacturer
Gilimex says the US tech giant has scaled back orders after it already boosted capacity; Gilimex says it had already invested an eight-digit US dollar amount into manufacturing facilities after sealing the deal with Amazon.

Filipino social commerce startup SariSuki raises US$12.7M
The investors include Kickstart Venture, Openspace Ventures, SIG, GFC, and Foxmont; SariSuki is a community group buying platform for daily essentials and groceries.

Digital health-science firm Aktivolabs scores US$10M Series A
The investors include Mitsui, Adaptive Capital, and SEEDS Capital; The firm harnesses real-time digital health data elements in a low-touch, cost-effective manner with measurable actuarial and actionable value to life and health insurers.

Indonesia’s sharia SME lending firm ALAMI raises funding
The investor is Beneva, an arm of beauty company ParagonCorp; ALAMI has over 111,000 P2P investors involved in almost 10,000 projects across the nation.

AI-powered self-driving robot Clearbot raises funding
The investors include Alibaba HK Entrepreneurs Fund, Gobi Ventures, and Earth VC; Clearbot automates pollution recovery, surveillance and rescue, and goods delivery in urban waterways intelligently and without manpower.

Payoneer secures approval to expand payment offerings in Singapore
Once received, the payment institution license from the MAS enables the company to offer services such as mass payout and card offerings for companies located in Singapore, according to a statement.

“Consolidation and explosion”: SEA’s investors reveal 2023 trends
Some 2022 trends will remain relevant, but there are different ways that SEA startup investors want to seize these opportunities.

‘Focus on your north-star vision’: 30 startups speak of their learnings in 2022
What these Southeast Asian companies did do to weather the many crises that defined the year 2022 and remain relevant?

Hong Kong rolls out Asia’s first crypto ETFs
Its new ETFs CSOP Bitcoin Futures and CSOP Ether Futures track cash-settled Bitcoin futures contracts and Ether futures contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Web2 vs Web3 people: Disruption amid decentralisation as blockchain goes mainstream
Mainstream adoption has resulted in professionals and experts from different industries wanting to transition to Web3.

How great leaders embrace uncertainty and ambiguity
Repeated exposure to high levels of uncertainty can throw entrepreneurs on an emotional rollercoaster, potentially impacting their mental and physical health.

How to combat festive season fraud with ease
The effects of fraud can be devastating for businesses, from reputational costs to loss in revenue, says Nick Stipp, VP and GM (Asia Pacific) for Ekata, a Mastercard company.

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Singapore-headquartered healthtech company Doctor Anywhere (DA) has acquired Catalist-listed integrated healthcare provider Asian Healthcare Specialists (SGX:1J3).

Asian Healthcare Specialists (AHS) is a group of 14 medical specialists with a patient-first approach and vision to make specialised care accessible to all. Its 12 specialist clinics across multidisciplinary specialities comprise orthopaedics, ophthalmology, dermatology, urology, gastroenterology, otorhinolaryngology, anaesthesia, family medicine and rehabilitation.

A statement said the acquisition will enable Doctor Anywhere to deliver more holistic healthcare and meet the rising demand for complex, specialised treatment across Southeast Asia.

Doctor Anywhere has also announced a US$38.8 million Series C1 financing round led by international life science investor Novo Holdings. Existing shareholders also participated, including Asia Partners, Kamet Capital, Square Peg, IHH Healthcare, EDBI, and OSK-SBI Venture Partners.

The funding will be used to accelerate growth and partly fund the acquisition of AHS.

Also Read: How telehealth startup Doctor Anywhere stepped up to the COVID-19 challenge

The latest round comes just over a year after Doctor Anywhere raised a US$65.7 million Series C. This brings the total capital raised by the firm to nearly US$140 million.

“With consumers across the region seeking higher quality and more personalised care, acquiring AHS strengthens our capabilities beyond our successful primary care services. This will enable us to deliver more integrated, holistic care and greater value for our users,” said Lim Wai Mun, Founder and CEO of Doctor Anywhere.

“We continue looking for synergistic opportunities and targeted acquisitions of critical healthcare assets across the region,” added Wai Mun.

Launched in 2017, Doctor Anywhere is an omnichannel healthcare company that aims to make healthcare accessible and efficient for everyone. Its digital platform bridges gaps in the healthcare ecosystem through technology and innovation, enabling users to manage their health effectively through its mobile app.

In November 2021, Doctor Anywhere acquired the Thai telemedicine platform Doctor Raksa to deepen its presence in the Kingdom by expanding its medication delivery services.

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Singapore is the ninth most targeted country for crypto fraud, with four hacks and breaches worth US$14.6 million since 2011, new research by CoinJournal finds.

The US is the most commonly targeted country, with 13 hacks and breaches.

CoinJournal looked at available data around major breaches and fraud since 2011 to reveal which countries had experienced the most violations and how crypto fraud has seen a record number of incidents in 2022. The research considered the most costly cases of crypto scams, the most commonly stolen coins, the most common method of scams, the most targeted countries, and how much crypto scams have increased.

The ten most targeted countries for crypto fraud:

With 120 incidents, 2022 was the worst for crypto fraud and breaches. This was 26 more than the previous year.

The year 2021 saw the biggest rise (over 200 per cent) in incidents from 2020. There were 94 incidents during 2021, and the total funds lost were the highest in the last ten years, at US$4.6 billion.

Also Read: Cryptocurrency regulations should evolve: Mistletoe Singapore MD Atsushi Taira

With 31 incidents, the third-highest number of crypto breaches was in 2020. This was an increase of just under 20 per cent of the 26 accumulated during the previous year. Just under US$1.5 billion was lost during these 31 incidents.

The costliest crypto scam in 2022 was by Plus Token, where almost US$3 billion worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum was stolen. Plus Token was a Ponzi scheme disguised as an investment programme.

The Thodex scam came in second. A police report revealed the Thodex CEO had allegedly fled from Turkey with US$2 billion worth of cryptocurrency, leaving its 700,000 users scammed.

WoToken was another Ponzi scheme which defrauded US$1 billion from more than 700,000 users. WoToken was dubbed ‘Plus Token 2.0’ by the media due to its similarities with the Plus Token scam. It was also revealed that one of the members of WoToken was part of the Plus Token scam.

With 50 incidents, BSC was the most stolen coin in 2022. The second most commonly stolen coin was ETH (33 times).

The most stolen cryptocurrency is Bitcoin (BTC) — stolen in 94 crypto scams. Despite it being the most popular and valuable cryptocurrency, BTC was only stolen three times in 2022.

Also Read: What lessons can crypto investors draw from the Luna, UST episode?

Ethereum (ETH) was the second most common cryptocurrency stolen (84 times). Ethereum was also the second most stolen currency in 2022 (stolen 33 times).

The most common crypto attack was DeFi breaches (167 incidents), with almost US$4 million lost. They were also the most common type of breaches during 2022, with 80 DeFi breaches in 2022 alone.

The second most common type of crypto attack was breaches. Within the 123 breaches, over US$3 million was stolen or lost. Breaches appear to have become less common in 2022, with just four attacks happening out of the 122.

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The holiday season is approaching, and scammers have been busy impersonating and seeking means to dampen their festive mood.

In 2021, Americans lost over US$6.9 billion to fraudsters, including US$337 million in online shopping and non-delivery scams, according to the FBI.

In Singapore, the police have warned the public about phishing scams involving emails, texts and phone calls from scammers impersonating staff from e-commerce marketplaces. Singaporeans lost US$764,000 in one month alone, in September 2021, to non-banking-related phishing scams.

This year, small businesses feeling the post-pandemic squeeze are likely to see less of a holiday shopping frenzy. Retailers counting on key sales moments towards the end of the year must manage their inventory, revamp websites with seasonal promotions and get ready to capitalise on the spikes in consumer demand.

Convenience remains key for online retailers. Research shows that seven of every ten customers who add an item to their shopping cart leave without completing the purchase. That’s why a secure and seamless shopping experience is crucial for any merchant to minimise cart abandonment and win more customers during the shopping mayhem.

Holiday shopping, primarily via frequent online transactions, makes customers vulnerable as cybercrimes and scams surge during the holiday season. Because there is a larger pool of targets than any other time of year, merchants should revisit their cybersecurity measures to ensure secure and frictionless checkouts, with neither attribute compromised for the other.

A non-negotiable: Enhanced security plan to mitigate scamming risks

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, more than 2,700 e-commerce scam cases were reported in 2021, with about US$5.8 million in losses. They have become one of the most prevalent types of scams in Singapore, posing risks to consumers and retailers alike.

Also Read: How to tackle cybersecurity threats during the holidays

Phishing is one of the most reported scams during holiday seasons, with shoppers often duped into buying fake goods such as counterfeit watches, “miracle” cures and other holiday-branded goods.

E-commerce more broadly can suffer as a result, as one loss from a scam can lead to a total erosion of the trust consumers have towards all things digital, undermining the efforts of e-commerce businesses and governments that have invested heavily in creating digital infrastructure to increase access and ease to their services.

Therefore, setting up a holistic security plan to manage these risks is non-negotiable.

A dilemma: Choosing between security and seamlessness

A dilemma exists when adding security measures introduces friction in consumers’ shopping experiences.

Points of friction come in three common forms.

First, with identification, shoppers must constantly verify their identity across different sites and platforms offered by the same merchant, such as their website and mobile app.

Second, authentication measures like passwords and logins may require multiple steps, such as 2FA, filling out CAPTCHA boxes, or waiting to receive OTP pins.

Third, during the checkout process, when the customers make the payment, the last authorisation step asks shoppers to confirm their card or bank. By this point, ample opportunities have been introduced for cart abandonment.

So, the question is, how to find the right balance between security and a great shopping experience?

A joint effort: Finding the right balance

The online business environment is intrinsically not built with security in mind. Thankfully, the fight against cybercrimes in e-commerce involves government bodies, businesses, and the public.

The Cyber Security Agency (CSA) of Singapore has introduced multiple measures targeting small businesses and end consumers.

For example, the Cybersecurity Labelling Scheme has been introduced for consumers to know before they buy the security levels of the smart devices they bring in their homes and use daily for various purposes, including but not limited to performing e-commerce transactions.

Also Read: Safeguarding digital assets through cybersecurity innovations

At the same time, e-commerce merchants are striving to improve security solutions among their many operational priorities, such as logistics and inventory. Since most of them do not have the subject matter expertise and technologies available in-house, a retailer may choose to partner with PayPal.

PayPal’s behaviour analytics tracks behaviour patterns against established baselines and introduces extra checks when a user or device’s behaviour seems anomalous. Additionally, PayPal introduced Passkeys to replace passwords and allow seamless consumer logins across devices and platforms. This allows easier online checkout for buyers and removes checkout friction for merchants.

Practical tips to stay competitive this holiday season

What can businesses do from a practical standpoint to best capitalise on this holiday season? Here are three tips to consider:

First, personalise your products and services. Does the shop offer any customisation service such as name engraving to give a little personal touch? Customer expectations are constantly evolving, and the trick is to listen to what each shopper is looking for and what they would enjoy the most.

According to PayPal’s Borderless Commerce Report 2022, 46 per cent of online shoppers said they’re more likely to buy from retailers that offer virtual or digital experiences.

Therefore, introducing interactive elements to the shopping experience, such as providing a virtual makeup service or offering 3D tours, might appeal to shoppers. Optimising on-site content with holiday-specific keywords also helps personalise the holiday shopping experience.

Second, optimise the checkout process. This is one of the most effective ways to maximise holiday sales. The month of December experiences the highest cart abandonment rates as; people spend more time deliberating on gift options for their loved ones.

Creating a frictionless and flexible shopping experience by offering guest checkout and diversified payment options could translate to higher conversion rates.

Third, create peace of mind. Communication touchpoints between merchant and consumer are vulnerable to malicious attacks, especially at the payment transaction level.

Ensuring sufficient security measures, using a trusted payments provider, and providing buyers with options to contact you will greatly help merchants gain consumers’ trust, maximise authorisation, and minimise losses.

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At e27, we have kickstarted a new article series called work-life balance to learn more about tech enablers and executives and their lives beyond working hours.

Kenneth Tan is the Co-Founder and CEO of BeLive Technology. Tan grew up in Singapore and has diverse interests, including video games, concept art creation and DJ-ing.

He was Director of Strategy for the Japanese company DeNa when he was first introduced to live-streaming and decided to start BeLive Technology soon after. 

Initially, he focused on offering a platform that was likened to “virtual busking”, but over time he realised this was not the ideal model. After partnering with Japan’s most popular e-commerce platform Rakuten, Tan felt BeLive found its beat by offering live-streaming solutions to retailers and big companies.

Today, BeLive has partnered with clients in various sectors, including e-commerce, retail, electronics, beauty and social media. As of 2021, BeLive has streamed over 55 hours of live content.

He is a regular contributor of articles for e27 (you can read his thought leadership articles here). 

In this candid interview, Tan talks about his personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a five-year-old?

With the rise of global video platforms like TikTok/YouTube and the high exposure rate to digital natives, it makes explaining to children a little easier. I would tell them that we help everyone connect online via videos and easily buy things online while also liking and commenting on the product, all at the same time.

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

It would be seeing the company’s growth over the years. We started with a four-person team, and now we are proud to work alongside our 50 teammates serving the largest brands in the world and becoming a household name in live and video streaming solutions. We have proven that we can continue to help enterprise clients with groundbreaking and scalable solutions for their business needs.

Also Read: Try to look at the world through a beginner’s eyes: Joey Alarilla of Playfix.io

The journey has been challenging yet exciting, with us making many difficult decisions to ensure business continuity. One of the difficult decisions we made was in 2017 when we pivoted from a B2C platform to a B2B solutions provider. There were countless factors to consider, but we are proud to say it was one of the best decisions we have made in our business.

Today, we are proud to say we power the best global brands with our live and video commerce solutions.

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

I would say it will only continue to be very exciting as we are experiencing good growth within the live-streaming space. As video continues to take centre stage and the world inevitably adopts video as its primary content consumption medium, BeLive Technology will continue to grow exponentially. Working alongside my teammates and partnering with them to build the future of video streaming is incredibly exciting and is a key focus for me.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

Other than the usual MS Office suspects, some not-so-common tools I use include Photoshop, Notability, and Overcast.

I like to brainstorm by sketching and quickly prototyping, and Photoshop/Notability is perfect. Overcast (Podcast app) saves my long commutes by allowing me to take a breather and learn from the best in the industry. I recommend the 20VC and How I Built This podcasts.

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

The amount of hard labour and sheer hours put into building relationships with partners, colleagues, and stakeholders. This effort has to be intentional, tracked, and followed up upon.

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

I firmly believe in in-person interactions and the water cooler conversations we were sorely missing during the pandemic.

Also Read: Your identity should not be limited to what you do at work: Sheryl Chen of Qualgro

However, I’m all for a hybrid work model if managers can hold their teams accountable.

What would you tell your younger self?

Destroy your enemies by making them your friends. In business and life, partnerships are always better than rivalries.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Inquisitive, self-aware, and lucky.

Firstly, I’m fortunate to be able to help provide for my colleagues and their families. I’m also ridiculously lucky to have a loving and supportive wife, son, and mother. Being self-aware of my weaknesses, admitting when I’m not doing things right, and seeking the right answers, asking for help has always been a big part of my life.

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

I’m with the family. My three-year-old son is an absolute riot now, and I love spending time with him and the missus.

What are you currently reading/listening to/watching?

I’m revisiting Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. My first read-through was so enjoyable that I blazed through it. Of course, I have been going back to a few of my favourite chapters during a weekend afternoon with a hot coffee.

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Join the e27 contributor community of thought leaders and share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

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