Singapore’s S$225 Million Smart Nation Fund

A $225 MILLION initiative to help financial firms set up innovation labs and to fund infrastructure to deliver financial technology (fintech) services was announced on Monday. Financial firms can tap the fund for innovation labs and infrastructure initiatives.

The Financial Sector Technology & Innovation (FSTI) scheme is one of several programmes aimed at establishing Singapore as a smart financial centre, which in turn is part of the Government's "smart nation" initiative, said Mr Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) yesterday.

Mr Menon told the Global Technology Law conference that the MAS will develop a regulatory approach that strengthens the industry's cyber security as well as devising initiatives to support the adoption of new technologies. These include developing efficient digital payments systems and regulatory reporting and smart surveillance systems.

Metlife and Swiss bank UBS have applied to tap FSTI funds to set up innovation labs, although other institutions have already established innovation centres on their own.

China and India Included As Amazon Expands Seller Lending Programme:

Amazon is bringing its business loan programme to eight new countries, including China and India according to Reuters.

Launched in the US in 2012 and also running in Japan, Amazon Lending provides short-term working capital loans to small businesses that sell through the e-commerce giant.

Later this year the service will arrive on an invite-only basis in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Spain and the UK, Amazon Marketplace boss Peter Faricy has been quoted as saying.

Firms are offered three to six month loans of $1000 to $600,000, with Amazon making money on interest and its cut of sales made through its platform.

"We know a lot about our sellers' business and invite only those who we think are in the best position to take capital and grow," says Faricy.

Alibaba and eBay also offer vendors credit, via PayPal and Ant Financial, as a way of attracting firms to their marketplaces.

ShenYi Implements Orc Trading Platform:

Orc, the global market leader in electronic trading technology for listed derivatives, today announced that Shanghai ShenYi Investment Co. (ShenYi) has implemented Orc’s Trading Bricks solution to improve trade efficiency for ETF options trading on Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE).

ShenYi is also participating in the mock trading competition organized by China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX) as the market prepares for the launch of CSI300 index options. Orc Trading Bricks is fast and built for change, it provides rich functionality which was quickly integrated with ShenYi’s trading environment for enhancing the firm’s overall trading performance and maximizing opportunities for growth.

“As we expand our options trading business, selecting the right technology platform to underpin our trading operations is critical,” said John Jodlowski, Chief Trader, Shanghai ShenYi Investment Co. “We knew that the Orc Trading Bricks platform is widely used internationally and when considering our needs for the Chinese markets we recognized that Orc’s expertise and proven technology would be a great fit for our business.”

“ShenYi chose Orc after extensively evaluating the solutions in the market and their decision is a strong testimony to the performance and scalability of our trading technology,” said Dennis Chen, VP Sales APAC, Orc Group. “There is a great demand from Chinese trading firms looking for proven trading solutions that will help them capitalize on the emerging market opportunities. We look forward to working with ShenYi to serve their present and future trading needs.”

Orc’s Trading Bricks platform has been engineered from the ground up to address the greatest demands in trading today: the incessant drive and expectation for performance, and the fundamental and frequent changes to the financial market landscape. With diverse clients trading around the globe, Orc’s app-based, modular architecture is a proven solution for both of these challenges.

FIME Selected By BancNet For Philippines’ EMV Migration

BancNet, the largest interbank network service provider in the Philippines, has selected FIME, the world’s leading EMV migration service provider for domestic and international card payment schemes, to support the country’s migration to chip card technology.

Following a mandate from Bangko Sentral Ng Philipinas, the Philippines’ Central Bank, BancNet is leading the program to migrate all issuing and acquiring banks to EMV by January 2017. The Philippines has in excess of 100 banks which service more than 76 million banking customers across the country.

FIME’s EMV team is supporting BancNet with consulting services to apply best practices for EMV to the migration process. Visa’s Card Specification VIS1.5 is being used as the foundation for the migration and FIME is supporting the domestic payment network in reviewing its proprietary terminal and banking host EMV specifications.

To enable BancNet to effectively support the country’s banking community, FIME is developing a series of certification services and test tools which banks can use to verify the compliance of their EMV cards and terminals, and confirm that acquirer host networks are implemented correctly. FIME will also offer on-site services for member banks to enable fast and successful certification test projects.