Asia

November 18, 2025 @ 10:43 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Tether, which claims to be one of the largest companies in the digital assets industry, recently announced that it supported the Royal Thai Police and the United States Secret Service in a “coordinated” international operation that led to the seizure of approximately 12 million USDT… Read More

November 18, 2025 @ 7:59 am By Omar Faridi  |  

DigiFT, a digital asset exchange for institutional-grade real-world assets (RWAs), and SBI Holdings (Nasdaq : SBHGF), one of Japan’s financial groups, announced the establishment of a joint venture company, SBI Onchain, in order to enable the ongoing adoption of onchain finance across Japanese and international markets…. Read More

November 17, 2025 @ 10:09 pm By Michael Wong  |  

StraitsX, a Singapore-based stablecoin settlement firm, has secured a $10 million strategic investment from cross-border payments provider UQPAY to fund regional expansion, while existing backer NTT Docomo also joined the round, the company said on Wednesday. StraitsX said the funding strengthens its ability to link… Read More

November 17, 2025 @ 9:04 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Banking Circle S.A. is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary BC Payments Pte. Ltd. has now reportedly been granted a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). A key milestone in Banking Circle’s expansion strategy, BC Payments  Singapore… Read More

November 16, 2025 @ 9:54 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Singapore and Cambodia have launched a cross-border QR code payment link that allows Cambodian visitors to pay at merchants across the city-state using their home-grown Bakong system and other mobile banking apps, the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) said. Under the first phase, Cambodian travellers… Read More

November 16, 2025 @ 6:51 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced the launch of EnsembleTX, officially marking the start of the pilot phase of Project Ensemble.  This latest milestone unveiled by the HKMA represents an advancement in enabling real-value transactions involving tokenised deposits as well as digital assets within… Read More

November 16, 2025 @ 4:44 pm By Michael Wong  |  

National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has rolled out a new suite of fintech infrastructure services for licensed e-wallet providers and digital businesses, seeking to embed itself more deeply in Kuwait’s fast-evolving digital payments market, according to an announcement. The “FinTech Services” package includes virtual IBANs… Read More

November 16, 2025 @ 1:19 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Ghanem, a Saudi digital real estate platform focused on fractional ownership, has raised $7.1 million from Al-Romaih Group to fuel expansion and product development as the kingdom pushes to broaden investment access under its Vision 2030 agenda. Al-Romaih Group, described by Ghanem as one of… Read More

November 15, 2025 @ 11:43 am By Michael Wong  |  

Singapore’s central bank has completed a live trial of using a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) to settle overnight interbank loans, moving its experiments with tokenised assets onto an operational test network. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said the trial, conducted on its… Read More

November 14, 2025 @ 2:08 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Thunes, the so-called “Smart Superhighway” to move money across the globe, announces a new collab with Mashreq, a financial institution in the MENA region, to launch real-time mobile wallet payouts for millions of Mashreq customers. Enabled by Thunes’ Direct Global Network, the partnership will allow… Read More

November 13, 2025 @ 8:20 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

AURAS Technologies MENA FZCO, a Dubai-based firm that is specialized in Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) services, has recently announced the launch of AURAS Pay, which is described as a non-custodial decentralized payments platform that allows various merchants to accept and manage digital asset transactions directly… Read More

November 13, 2025 @ 8:19 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have recently announced a new partnership on artificial intelligence in Finance between Singapore and the United Kingdom (UK) – termed the UK-Singapore AI-in-Finance Partnership. Announced at the Singapore FinTech Festival, the partnership… Read More

November 13, 2025 @ 3:22 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

SIFMA, BNY, Broadridge and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), in collaboration with The ValueExchange, today released findings from their “U.S. Treasury Central Clearing Pulse Survey”, which draws upon insights from global market participants. The survey, conducted by The ValueExchange, was meant to provide… Read More

November 12, 2025 @ 10:37 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

CoinMENA FZE, a digital asset platform licensed and regulated as a broker-dealer by VARA, and botim, Astra Tech’s fintech-first, AI-native platform, have signed a partnership. The agreement will now aim to allow for easier, compliant funding into CoinMENA accounts for millions of users in the… Read More

November 11, 2025 @ 8:52 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

APAC equities stayed fairly resilient throughout this year as the trade uncertainty, ongoing political shifts, and the acceleration of AI continued to impact regional markets. The key driver was a strong AI-led rise in tech and semiconductor stocks, helping cushion wider volatility. As the new… Read More

November 9, 2025 @ 11:53 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has debuted Bybit Pay in Sri Lanka. The initial rollout covers 50 physical point-of-sale and 50 digital merchant activations. With mobile penetration exceeding 130% and ever-growing digital adoption, Sri Lanka has a vibrant payment ecosystem with significant opportunities for innovation and demands for… Read More

November 9, 2025 @ 11:43 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Singapore’s Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN) and US payments company Ripple said they are launching a capacity-building programme to help policymakers and regulators navigate digital assets, starting in Asia Pacific before expanding globally. The “Decoding Digital Assets” initiative plans to train more than 200… Read More

November 9, 2025 @ 10:26 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Tether, which claims to be one of largest companies in the digital asset industry, announced the signing of an MoU with the People’s Committee of Da Nang City in order to enable the development of digital infrastructure and various governance models in one of Vietnam’s… Read More

November 9, 2025 @ 3:50 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Fireblocks, an enterprise platform for secure digital asset custody, settlement, trading operations, and stablecoin payments, this week announced that Singapore Gulf Bank, a fully licensed digital wholesale bank regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain, will leverage Fireblocks’ digital asset infrastructure to support secure treasury… Read More

November 9, 2025 @ 3:27 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Credit conditions for Hong Kong’s small and medium-sized enterprises were broadly stable in the third quarter of 2025, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said. However, more firms perceived that banks had turned cautious compared with the previous period. Excluding respondents who said they had… Read More