Fintech is the buzzword on everyone’s lips right now. That and terms like ICO, crypto, and pretty anything vaguely related to it. At Tech Collective, we have valiantly tried to ignore it*.
*Editor’s note: We haven’t been successful, please read our articles Why is Asia leading the Fintech race? and Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency explained
However, with the potential of the region, it would be almost criminal for us to ignore the topic completely. This is why we’ve done our research to compile a list of the top Southeast Asian Fintech startups.
Ayannah, The Philippines
Ayannah focuses on digital financial services like payments, commerce and analytics on the social and mobile. Targeting the unbanked in emerging markets, this Filipino company provides affordable and accessible digital commerce and payment services to spur financial inclusion and literacy.
Based on their Crunchbase account, they’ve raised US$7.5m to date.
Lenddo, The Philippines
Lenddo offers a simple and secure way to prove identity online to unlock loans, online shopping and even improve chances of employment. With a range of services that include credit scoring and verification, Lenddo uses non-traditional data such as social media platforms like Facebook, Linkedin, Google, Yahoo and Twitter to prove their identity and creditworthiness.
This is essential for developing nations where record keeping and digital databases are scarce outside of the metropolitan areas.
To date, the company has raised US$14m and have finished their Series-B round.
SoCash, Singapore
Singaporean startup SoCash is going the opposite way of most fintech companies, but banking on the continued popularity of cash. Users can download the mobile app, request for a certain amount of cash, and approved vendors in the network will be able to accept the request and the user can pick up the cash from the vendor.
Working with the major banks, SoCash has been growing aggressively and are planning for faster expansion throughout the region. Fresh off a series-A raise of US$1m, the startup is poised to extend their reach far and wide.
OVO, Indonesia
Indonesia’s OVO is a points-focused service that helps consumers collect points for rewards when they purchase at participating merchant stores. Sound familiar?
It should because it is a common type of service. However, due to the sheer volume of potential customers in Indonesia, the market leaders like OVO are ideally placed to dominate. Their recent partnership with Grab probably didn’t hurt them either.
OVO is under the Lippo Group, which most recently announced a funding round of US$116m, so we can safely assume that OVO won’t run out of funds for a while.
CapitalBay, Malaysia
Probably the toughest market for us to assess accurately because it’s crowded and there hasn’t been a very strong standout just yet.
CapitalBay raised almost US$500,000 and has been growing aggressively in Malaysia. The company helps corporations optimise their working capital and provide businesses real-time technology to collaborate with a wider network of financial institutions to access financing opportunities.
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There you have it. The top 5 in our estimation, so we haven’t picked them by their funding, but a mixture of growth, potential, funding, and industry knowledge.
Let us know if we’ve forgotten any fintech companies in the region, as I am sure you will. We still have the stinging emails when we miss out on a company.
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