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| Britain’s banks embrace new technology - Biggest lenders respond to the demand for mobile services - Bloomberg |
There are two globally significant tech developments or evolution and possible international tech acquisitions that Malaysia cannot ignore and be prepared for the future.
The first is a warning from Singapore FinTech Consortium that Apps is becoming a main rival of banks.
We are now living in an era of a fast evolving world of wireless and electronic technology. From fanciful communication gadgets, handphone technology has evolved into tablets and what have you not, and now the mobile payment trend.
This tech evolution has given rise to debates in social and print media on whether mobiles can be deemed as disruptive technology.
In relative terms, whatever new technology is introduced into the consumer market, it is disruptive because it revolutionises and changes the mode of using new tech.
After all, did we not see how consumer spending and payments changed overnight with the introduction of credit cards? Even fraudsters are forced to embrace new tech to steal from cards.
And the technology used by fraudsters to steal from card users have become more sophisticated and disruptive as it can be.
And, that is why 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) Malaysia’s banking industry is switching off the signature-based card system on July 1, 2017. Some eight million credit cards and 24 million active debit cards need to be replaced with PIN (personal identification number) tech equipped with tighter security features, including a microchip that cannot be forged for better security.
Isn’t that disruptive enough for you?
And consumers are slowly but surely opting for the latest trend - making payments via their mobile phones.
Common sense dictates that this emerging new trend is set to disrupt the financial institutions, just as the credit cards did.
Whatever type of innovation that consumers embrace, it is going to affect their spending and payment trend and habits.
Whether mobile payments will impact the credit card business and banking industry, the answer is obvious, isn’t it?
What is absolutely certain is that mobile technology (smartphones, tablets, 4G data networks, etc) will continue to evolve innovatively, thereby providing consumers with new expectations and experience.
When one is in possession of a powerful and connected mobile device, all kinds of financial transactions can be performed that much faster and with super convenience.
A simple example is the booking and buying of movie tickets via smart phones, you see what we (No News Is Bad News) mean?
Just like how credit cards had impacted the marketing and sales strategies of financial institutions, we can also expect banks to adopt and embrace new technology, and to evolve their services to consumers so as to remain competitive and relevancy in their business.
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Pictures are doing most of the talking these days—changing culture, technology, business as we know it. - Fortune
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Is 1MDB Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Umno-led Barisan Nasional (BN) federal government competent to evolve and embrace new technology for the benefit of Malaysians and Malaysia?
Well, for one, the Immigration Department’s recent passport renewal fiasco certainly is a reflection of administrative and technology-embracing incompetency.
We really wonder, as Umno is too busy with politicking and “deploying” the antics of racial and religious bigots, like the Jamal-led Red Shirts and the Ali Tinju “buttock dancers”.
What about Malaysian banks? That’s their own filthy rich business, not ours.
To us, it is not how technology disrupts life, trends and businesses that include credit card and banking that is worrying.
How safe are mobile payments? That is what we should be asking because phones can be hacked with technology.
The second issue in this blog posting is about wealthy China’s globe-trotting shopping spree, buying up every new technology that it deems best serve its ambition to dominate the world and to replace the US as the 21st Century Superpower.
And, Singapore appears to be fast taking measures to ensure that it is not left far behind in the race to embrace new technology or to evolve and adapt for the future.
The end game: It is still all about world socio-economic geo-political dominace.
Here are the details of the two news reports that the world cannot afford to ignore:
"Apps becoming the main rival of banks, says expert
Minderjeet Kaur
| October 6, 2016
Banks must embrace technology or risk losing customers, warns Singapore FinTech Consortium co-founder.
KUALA LUMPUR: Banks in Malaysia are beginning to realise that their main competitors are smartphones and apps, rather than other banks.
Singapore FinTech Consortium co-founder Gerben Visser said fresh-faced financial technology start-ups (fintechs) were coming up with new mobile-first services – payments, loans, money transfers, digital currencies – which were threatening to “steal” customers, particularly younger ones, from banks.
Visser warned that if banks did not keep up with the times, they would lose out.
“Fintech will be the Uber, Airbnb and Tripadvsor of the banking industry. It is tech based.
“Malaysian banks have not felt the pinch of losing clients, like the taxi, hotel and travel industries have. It is just a matter of time, unless they buck up in terms of technology,” he told FMT.
Visser was one of the speakers at the International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing at the Majestic Hotel. He spoke on Fintech: Facilitate or Disruptive Technology?
He also warned that Malaysian customers would realise that start-ups could offer more relevant services, despite being relatively small.
The biggest problem with banks, Visser noted, was that their core systems were 20 to 30 years old, while Fintech startups offered seamless transactions.
“The younger generation wants Facebook-type solutions. They want to have seamless, elegant and intuitive systems.
“They feel: Why do I have to fill up a form or fax stuff,” he explained.
He, however, said start-ups would not take over the role of commercial banks just yet, as they were relatively new in Malaysia and had not impacted the local banks yet.
“Once Fintech becomes a norm among Malaysian customers, commercial banks will have to keep up in terms of technology
“Banks will either need to buck up on their tech to get the customers back or look for new solutions to find new customers.”
In Malaysia, three Malaysian banks – Malayan Banking, CIMB and RHB – are working with Fintech start-ups.
Interestingly, in August, CIMB closed some branches in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia to embrace digital banking.
Banks worldwide, meanwhile, have been reducing their branches while increasing technological features at brick-and-mortar locations to reduce reliance on service staff and push more customers into digital products."
And this was what was posted on Facebook by a China propagandist that had the news report attached below: "If China is just the 2nd economy in the world, how come China can afford to buy twitter whereas the USA according to Western sources is the #1 econ in the world can not afford it?”
"Twitter: Chinese firm could buy the company in the coming wave of cross-border tech acquisitions
ANALYSIS
The Conversation
By Paul X McCarthy, UNSW
Posted Thu at 9:51am
As the financial media speculates about Twitter being acquired by Salesforce, Alphabet (formerly Google) or even Apple, companies outside the Californian tech scene have received little attention as potential suitors.
There's now clear interest, appetite and capacity for cross-border mega deals in online tech, as Tencent's acquisition of Supercell in June this year has shown.
"Asian strategic investment in European tech firms has grown steadily over the last decade but this year it has gone through the roof" says London-based Jack Fisher, Senior Business Development Manager of Global Deals Data provider, PitchBook.
Tencent is China's largest online social media and gaming company. Its landmark majority investment in Finland's Supercell (makers of the global smash hit mobile game Clash of Clans) valued the 200-person company at $US10.2 billion.
This crowned it as Europe's first "Decacorn" or private startup online tech company to reach a valuation of more than $US10 billion.
In another Transatlantic mega deal, Japanese Tech Investment Giant SoftBank's $US31.4 billion back in July acquisition of British chip designer ARM Holdings - whose success has been buoyed by the use of their chips in tens of billions of web connected devices for Apple, Samsung and others - is the biggest ever purchase of a European technology company ever and SoftBank's largest overseas acquisition.
In September last year, China's other online giant Alibaba hired Michael Evans, the former vice-chair of Goldman Sachs, to lead the company's quest for offshore expansion.
Evant has since overseen five acquisitions, all worth more than $US200 million, and each of them outside China - in Singapore, India, Hong Kong and the US.
The latest one is the largest yet — a $US1 billion deal for a controlling stake in the number one South-East Asian e-commerce startup, Singapore-based Lazada Group.
Globalised web economy drives mega-mergers
While Twitter may not be on the radar of overseas investors, there is now a large and growing stream of international global mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector every month.
Cross-border deal flow has steadily increased each year since the emergence of the web and shows how the new economics of "online gravity" is accelerating globalisation.
This new economics has helped forge the five most valuable companies in the world right now — each now valued at more than $US300 billion.
They include Apple (with a fortune built on the web connected iPhone), Alphabet (formerly Google), Microsoft (now parent to LinkedIn and Skype), Amazon and Facebook.
Two more companies with massive fortunes also built on the incredible economics of the web, the Chinese online giants Tencent and Alibaba, also now enjoy market valuations in excess of $US250 billion each. They now rank among the world's largest companies.
Since 2000, US technology companies have acquired 230 Asian tech companies with the numbers steadily increasing each year.
With even more dramatic growth, Asian tech companies have acquired 373 companies since 2000. Between 2011-2013 Asian tech companies were acquiring between 20 to 30 US companies per year and now it's double this rate with between 50-60 major deals being consummated each year.
Recent noteworthy large-scale deals include:
Acquirer: Softbank, Japan; Acquired: ARM Holdings, UK
Valuation at acquisition: $US31.4 billion; Date: July 2016
Tencent, China; Supercell, Finland; $US10.2 billion; June 2016
Tencent, China; Riot Games, US; $US$400 million; February 2011
Rakuten, Japan; Ebates, US; $US1 billion; September 2014
Rakuten, Japan; Viber, Cyprus; $US900 million; February 2014
Acquisitions — one of the keys to tech innovation
Mergers and acquisitions are a key but often overlooked part of the digital economy and central to the success of the global technology innovation ecosystem as we know it.
Most of Alphabet's significant innovation since it created the world's most famous search engine has been the result of its 190 acquisitions.
Google Maps, for example, was an acquisition, so too Google Docs, Gmail, and YouTube. Many elements at the core of Google's breathtaking commercial success in online advertising rely on innovation from start-ups that were acquired and integrated into Google's own internal efforts.
The impact of the web on accelerating globalisation can be seen beyond the tech sector too.
Many digitally transformed traditional industries like media, telecommunications and electronics have also become the subject of major Asia-based cross-border acquisitions including:
Industry: Publishing; Acquirer: Nikkei, Japan; Acquired: Financial Times, UK; Valuation at acquisition: $US1.32 billion; Date: 2015
Electronics; Toshiba, Japan; Landis+Gyr, Switzerland; $US2.3 billion; 2011
Telecommunications; Singtel, Singapore; Optus, Australia; $US8.5 billion; 2001
Here are the details of the two news reports that the world cannot afford to ignore:
"Apps becoming the main rival of banks, says expert
Minderjeet Kaur
| October 6, 2016
Banks must embrace technology or risk losing customers, warns Singapore FinTech Consortium co-founder.
KUALA LUMPUR: Banks in Malaysia are beginning to realise that their main competitors are smartphones and apps, rather than other banks.
Singapore FinTech Consortium co-founder Gerben Visser said fresh-faced financial technology start-ups (fintechs) were coming up with new mobile-first services – payments, loans, money transfers, digital currencies – which were threatening to “steal” customers, particularly younger ones, from banks.
Visser warned that if banks did not keep up with the times, they would lose out.
“Fintech will be the Uber, Airbnb and Tripadvsor of the banking industry. It is tech based.
“Malaysian banks have not felt the pinch of losing clients, like the taxi, hotel and travel industries have. It is just a matter of time, unless they buck up in terms of technology,” he told FMT.
Visser was one of the speakers at the International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing at the Majestic Hotel. He spoke on Fintech: Facilitate or Disruptive Technology?
He also warned that Malaysian customers would realise that start-ups could offer more relevant services, despite being relatively small.
The biggest problem with banks, Visser noted, was that their core systems were 20 to 30 years old, while Fintech startups offered seamless transactions.
“The younger generation wants Facebook-type solutions. They want to have seamless, elegant and intuitive systems.
“They feel: Why do I have to fill up a form or fax stuff,” he explained.
He, however, said start-ups would not take over the role of commercial banks just yet, as they were relatively new in Malaysia and had not impacted the local banks yet.
“Once Fintech becomes a norm among Malaysian customers, commercial banks will have to keep up in terms of technology
“Banks will either need to buck up on their tech to get the customers back or look for new solutions to find new customers.”
In Malaysia, three Malaysian banks – Malayan Banking, CIMB and RHB – are working with Fintech start-ups.
Interestingly, in August, CIMB closed some branches in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia to embrace digital banking.
Banks worldwide, meanwhile, have been reducing their branches while increasing technological features at brick-and-mortar locations to reduce reliance on service staff and push more customers into digital products."
And this was what was posted on Facebook by a China propagandist that had the news report attached below: "If China is just the 2nd economy in the world, how come China can afford to buy twitter whereas the USA according to Western sources is the #1 econ in the world can not afford it?”
"Twitter: Chinese firm could buy the company in the coming wave of cross-border tech acquisitions
ANALYSIS
The Conversation
By Paul X McCarthy, UNSW
Posted Thu at 9:51am
 |
 PHOTO: Asian strategic investment in European tech firms has grown steadily. (REUTERS: Lucas Jackson) |
There's now clear interest, appetite and capacity for cross-border mega deals in online tech, as Tencent's acquisition of Supercell in June this year has shown.
"Asian strategic investment in European tech firms has grown steadily over the last decade but this year it has gone through the roof" says London-based Jack Fisher, Senior Business Development Manager of Global Deals Data provider, PitchBook.
Tencent is China's largest online social media and gaming company. Its landmark majority investment in Finland's Supercell (makers of the global smash hit mobile game Clash of Clans) valued the 200-person company at $US10.2 billion.
This crowned it as Europe's first "Decacorn" or private startup online tech company to reach a valuation of more than $US10 billion.
In another Transatlantic mega deal, Japanese Tech Investment Giant SoftBank's $US31.4 billion back in July acquisition of British chip designer ARM Holdings - whose success has been buoyed by the use of their chips in tens of billions of web connected devices for Apple, Samsung and others - is the biggest ever purchase of a European technology company ever and SoftBank's largest overseas acquisition.
In September last year, China's other online giant Alibaba hired Michael Evans, the former vice-chair of Goldman Sachs, to lead the company's quest for offshore expansion.
Evant has since overseen five acquisitions, all worth more than $US200 million, and each of them outside China - in Singapore, India, Hong Kong and the US.
The latest one is the largest yet — a $US1 billion deal for a controlling stake in the number one South-East Asian e-commerce startup, Singapore-based Lazada Group.
Globalised web economy drives mega-mergers
While Twitter may not be on the radar of overseas investors, there is now a large and growing stream of international global mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector every month.
Cross-border deal flow has steadily increased each year since the emergence of the web and shows how the new economics of "online gravity" is accelerating globalisation.
This new economics has helped forge the five most valuable companies in the world right now — each now valued at more than $US300 billion.
They include Apple (with a fortune built on the web connected iPhone), Alphabet (formerly Google), Microsoft (now parent to LinkedIn and Skype), Amazon and Facebook.
Two more companies with massive fortunes also built on the incredible economics of the web, the Chinese online giants Tencent and Alibaba, also now enjoy market valuations in excess of $US250 billion each. They now rank among the world's largest companies.
Since 2000, US technology companies have acquired 230 Asian tech companies with the numbers steadily increasing each year.With even more dramatic growth, Asian tech companies have acquired 373 companies since 2000. Between 2011-2013 Asian tech companies were acquiring between 20 to 30 US companies per year and now it's double this rate with between 50-60 major deals being consummated each year.
Recent noteworthy large-scale deals include:
Acquirer: Softbank, Japan; Acquired: ARM Holdings, UK
Valuation at acquisition: $US31.4 billion; Date: July 2016
Tencent, China; Supercell, Finland; $US10.2 billion; June 2016
Tencent, China; Riot Games, US; $US$400 million; February 2011
Rakuten, Japan; Ebates, US; $US1 billion; September 2014
Rakuten, Japan; Viber, Cyprus; $US900 million; February 2014
Acquisitions — one of the keys to tech innovation
Mergers and acquisitions are a key but often overlooked part of the digital economy and central to the success of the global technology innovation ecosystem as we know it.
Most of Alphabet's significant innovation since it created the world's most famous search engine has been the result of its 190 acquisitions.
Google Maps, for example, was an acquisition, so too Google Docs, Gmail, and YouTube. Many elements at the core of Google's breathtaking commercial success in online advertising rely on innovation from start-ups that were acquired and integrated into Google's own internal efforts.
The impact of the web on accelerating globalisation can be seen beyond the tech sector too.
Many digitally transformed traditional industries like media, telecommunications and electronics have also become the subject of major Asia-based cross-border acquisitions including:
Industry: Publishing; Acquirer: Nikkei, Japan; Acquired: Financial Times, UK; Valuation at acquisition: $US1.32 billion; Date: 2015
Electronics; Toshiba, Japan; Landis+Gyr, Switzerland; $US2.3 billion; 2011
Telecommunications; Singtel, Singapore; Optus, Australia; $US8.5 billion; 2001
Not first time there's been a surge in cross-border deals
In the early 1990s, Japanese consumer electronics giants were on the hunt for Hollywood movie studios. They wanted media, software or "content" as it has become known to complement their hardware.
Japanese companies invested more than $US13 billion (nearly $US25 billion adjusted to today's money) in the US film and television industry, which included the mega acquisitions of two of the six largest Hollywood film studios — Matsushita's acquisition of MCA and Sony's purchase of Columbia Pictures.
Even Walt Disney turned to Japan for $US600 million in financing for its films.
It remains to be seen whether we may see a repeat of this scale of deal making with any of today's US online giants given their unprecedented scale.
What's almost certain is we will see more frequent and larger scale cross-border acquisitions of companies up to the size of Twitter (around $US30 billion) and perhaps even at the scale of Paypal or eBay ($US50 billion+).
At a smaller scale again, expect to see many more yo-yo deals with companies criss-crossing the planet to acquire others in their efforts to dominate a vertical market or technology sub-sector. Examples of these style deals include:
· LeEco (Beijing)'s $10m acquisition of Sydney based LeSports (Sydney) in January
· Carsales (Melbourne) estimated $15m purchase of Chileautos (Santiago) in March and
· Naspers (Cape Town) $180m takeover of Citruspay (Mumbai) last month.
Paul X. McCarthy is an adjunct professor at UNSW Australia.
This article was originally posted on The Conversation.
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, company-news, takeovers, asia, united-states”
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