The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | July 1st

By Puja Sharma

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

Merchant-friendly payment options

Hitachi Payment Services, India’s end-to-end payments and commerce solutions provider, has announced that it has received the final authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an Online Payment Aggregator, under the Payments and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.

This significant landmark enables the company to expand its digital solutions and services stack to encompass a comprehensive suite of innovative and merchant-friendly payment options, including UPI, Net banking, Cards and wallets, along with value-added services such as EMI, pay later, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), link-based payments and loyalty solutions for merchants.

Anuj Khosla, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Business, Hitachi Payment Services, said, “Receiving the Payment Aggregator license is an important milestone for us, and we are grateful to the RBI for their trust and approval. Receiving the license is not just a validation of our capabilities but a catalyst for us to bring innovative solutions and broaden our offerings. Our state-of-the-art platforms and end-to-end services, coupled with our expanded capabilities, uniquely position us to cater to the diverse needs of banks and FinTechs, enhance merchant adoption and make digital payments more pervasive.”

Taiwan-based CTBC Bank has implemented the Avaloq Core Platform to transform its private banking business digitally. The new platform enables CTBC Bank to offer specialized private banking products and services in Hong Kong and Singapore.

CTBC Bank is a privately owned bank in Taiwan with a strong international presence. It has 219 banking service outlets in 14 countries across Asia and North America.

The Avaloq Core Platform supports the expansion of CTBC Bank’s private banking business by optimizing and automating functions such as client relationship management, accounting and compliance. It streamlines the bank’s workflows across the front, middle and back offices while consolidating its systems into a single platform. Regulatory checks are fully integrated into the new core platform, which further strengthens CTBC Bank’s risk management capabilities as it moves to offer more sophisticated investment products and services across jurisdictions.

Near-instant peer-to-peer cross-border payments

CredAble, a FinTech offering working capital financing, has announced the launch of its new product, Revolving Short-Term Loans, within its new MSME lending vertical.

As MSMEs struggle with limited access to credit and borrowing opportunities, CredAble is playing a pivotal role in tackling these challenges and strengthening supply chains with its working capital financing platform. The company has been empowering MSMEs with affordable and timely working capital financing and facilitating on-time payments to strengthen their local and global supply chains.

On International MSME Day, FinTech announced the launch of Revolving Short-Term Loans in a bid to step up its efforts in democratising access to credit and empowering MSMEs with purpose-built solutions designed to solve their working capital challenges.

DBS Bank and Mashreq, the two financial institutions in Asia and MENA, have announced a collaboration that extends same-day and near-instant peer-to-peer cross-border payments to Mashreq’s retail customers in selected markets across Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas.

The service is powered by DBS Globesend, a cross-border payment solution enabling cost-effective, fast and transparent payments covering up to 132 currencies across 190 markets. With the service, customers will also be able to make same-day cross-border payments to popular digital wallets, in line with the growing demand for e-commerce transactions.

In addition, payments to Singapore and Hong Kong can be tracked end-to-end in real-time, providing greater certainty and peace of mind.

Kartik Taneja, Head of Payments and Consumer Lending at Mashreq, said, “We are pleased to join forces with DBS Bank to broaden our network, providing secure and seamless cross-border remittance services to meet the needs of the expanding expatriate community in the UAE. This strategic enhancement allows for global money transfers in near real-time, epitomising Mashreq’s unwavering commitment to elevating customer experience through cutting-edge innovations.”

What is the buzz

In a significant judgement, the Court of Justice (CJEU) has ruled that ABC Projektai can regain its banking licence, four years after it was revoked by the Bank of Lithuania.

ABC Projektai, formerly Bruc Bond UAB, a payment FinTech, had its banking licence revoked in April 2020 for allegedly holding customer funds longer than necessary for online transactions. In a detailed judgment, the court recognised ABC Projektai’s proactive measures and commitment to compliance and changed the penalty from permanent licence revocation to its full return by July 1, 2024.

The court determined that the main allegation against ABC Projektai regarding exceeding the boundaries of its payment institution licence was invalid.

ABC Projektai’s legal representative from the Lithuanian law firm MOTIEKA, Justinas Jarusevicius, said, “I appreciate the conclusions of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania that condemned the revocation of ABC Projektai’s license. I am extremely confident that the professional management at ABC Projektai will do all they can to continue their strong contributions to doing business the right way.”

The court stated that the initial revocation was harsh and disproportionate, that the previous allegation was invalid as there is no evidence of intentional wrongdoing from the company, and that FinTech took action to remedy its mistakes after the ruling.