This month saw advancements in e-payments in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, with announcements from Bank Negara Malaysia, DBS, Bank of China HK, WeChat Pay HK, and Swift.
Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank, on May 22 announced the merger of Malaysian Electronic Clearing Corporation (MyClear) and Malaysian Electronic Payment System (MEPS) to form Payments Network Malaysia or PayNet. PayNet will be the operator of shared payments infrastructures for Malaysia.
On May 5 DBS introduced its Smart Nation Ambassador Programme (SNAP). The programme will see DBS recruiting up to 1,000 ambassadors that will encourage small, cash-based merchants to adopt DBS PayLah! QR codes as a payment method in Singapore.
Bank of China Hong Kong and WeChat Pay Hong Kong announced a collaboration to promote mobile payments in Hong Kong, on May 19. As part of the collaboration they will offer a P2P payment service.
Swift introduced a new cross-border payments tracker that enables international payments to be traced in real-time on May 23. The tracker is part of the Swift global payments innovation (Swift gpi) service. It provides an end-to-end view of payments combined with a confirmation notice when the money reaches the recipient’s account. The tracker is available via an open API, making it compatible with proprietary banking systems.
On May 10 J.P. Morgan launched its Virtual Branch in China which eliminates the need to by physically present at the bank branch. This is the fourth location globally where it has been rolled out.
The International Accounting Standards Board released the new insurance accounting standard – IFRS 17 on May 18. The new standard, which is to replace the current one for accounting periods from 1 January 2021, will be the first ever global accounting standard for insurance contracts and will change how and what insurance companies globally have to report.
Finally, we also learnt that CFOs in China are more optimistic and plan to prioritize business expansion in 2017, according to a study by Deloitte, published on May 12.
