iFX EXPO Asia 2023 is the premier event for business networking and collaboration in the financial and fintech space. The event is set to take place from June 20 to 22, 2023, in the vibrant city of Bangkok, Thailand. Following the resounding success of the previous edition, this year the event returns to the exotic city, greater and more vibrant than ever. For over a decade, iFX EXPO has set the standard for high-calibre fintech exhibitions.

Why Bangkok?

Bangkok is a bustling metropolis and an emerging hub for finance and technology in Asia, with 182 fintech startups and established financial companies based in the city, according to data collected by Tracxn.com.

Currently valued at $1 billion, the Thai fintech sector continues to see growth, especially across the digital payments sector with a total estimated transaction value of $34.82 billion by the end of 2023, according to Statista.

With a rising number of fintech buyers - which, according to the same Statista report, is expected to hit 70.66 million in the next four years - Thailand is set to become Asia’s next tech heartland. Therefore, Bangkok is the perfect place to be for fintech leaders.

iFX EXPO Asia in a nutshell

The event is expected to bring together a diverse range of stakeholders, including technology and service providers, digital assets, blockchain, retail and institutional brokers, payment providers, banks and liquidity providers, affiliates and IBs, as well as regulators and compliance officers. With such a broad range of attendees, the expo offers the perfect stage for collaboration, networking and insightful debate.

More than an exhibition, iFX EXPO provides countless opportunities to showcase your fintech brand, share ideas with industry peers and engage with inspiring content during the Speaker sessions and Idea Hub discussions.

Conceived as a continuum of business showcases, exhibition centres and conferences, the expo smoothly transitions from one to the other, presenting attendees with a wealth of opportunities to make their mark in the industry by either exhibiting or sponsoring the event.

Securing a booth at iFX EXPO Asia gives fintech brands the chance to stand out from the crowd and showcase their innovative products and services. Each edition brings more and more stellar exhibitors from across fintech and finance - from well-established prime brokerages and liquidity providers to ambitious startups. Contact sales@ifxexpo.com to reserve your booth today. The best spots sell out fast!

If exhibiting at the expo brings you in front of potential clients, sponsoring iFX EXPO Asia takes it up another notch, enabling you to strengthen your position in the industry and putting your brand name front and centre. To sponsor iFX EXPO Asia 2023, contact sales@ifxexpo.com.

Get Your Free Pass!
To gain access to everything the event has to offer, you need to register for a Free Pass. The Free Pass grants you:

●Entry to the Expo Venue

●Access to iFX EXPO Networking App

●Speaker Hall & Idea Hub Entry

●Access to Sponsored F&B Areas and Business Lounges

●Admission to the exuberant iFX EXPO Parties

To make the event more interactive, Ultimate Fintech, the organisers of the grand international iFX expos, encourage you to share your ideas and perspectives on the latest trends or suggest the Speakers & thought leaders you want to see on stage at iFX EXPO Asia. You can do so here.

Leaving nothing to chance, iFX EXPO comes with a dedicated networking app that allows you to connect with other delegates, schedule meetings, navigate through the floorplan and event agenda, and explore profiles of sponsors, exhibitors, and attendees.

Don’t miss out! Register today.

Wise, the global technology company building the best way to move and manage money is today rolling out a new look and feel. This comes as the company announced that it has reached 16 million customers served worldwide, and revealed plans for further global expansion.

The complete visual makeover features a fresh green palette and a bold new font, and draws from global currencies, languages, alphabets and places around the world. 

Designed to make the Wise customer experience consistent regardless of the place or language they sign up in, the look also underscores Wise’s mission to build money without borders and its ambition to create a fast, convenient, cost-effective and transparent global alternative to the traditional correspondent system.

With 6 million active customers moving over £25 billion each quarter, the company welcomes around 100,000 new customers every week. 

Wise continues to take on the world

First launched in 2011, Wise continues to invest in expanding its unique international account offer and underlying infrastructure:

• Wise Account: The world’s first international account for people, the account enables customers to send, spend, receive and hold money in 50+ currencies. Wise most recently introduced “Interest” in Assets in the UK, and “Balance Cashback” in Europe to the account 一 features to allow customers to earn a return on the money they hold in Wise, without compromising on their ability to instantly access their money when they need. Today, Wise also announced the launch of Assets in Singapore, and the feature will become available to customers in Europe next. 

In India and Israel, Wise has secured licences to launch more services including the multi-currency account and card soon.

• Wise Business: The one account for international businesses, Wise Business offers everything the personal account has along with business-specific tools like multi-user access, approval workflows, integrations into accounting software like Xero and expense cards for employees. Wise Business is used by over 300,000 businesses each quarter. In the US, Wise has begun rolling out cards to LLCs and sole proprietors. 

• Wise Platform: More than 60 banks and large businesses including GooglePay, Deel and Monzo offer their own customers faster, cheaper and more efficient international payments, powered by Wise, through Wise Platform partnerships. Wise Platform today also went live with Bank Mandiri, Indonesia's second-largest bank.

Kristo Käärmann, co-founder and CEO of Wise commented:

“Our new look is inspired by the millions of people and businesses worldwide that use Wise today. It draws from where they come from but also represents the excitement of the world open for them to conquer. 

“Over the past year, we’ve introduced new features to make Wise more useful to our customers and made payments faster. We now deliver over half our payments to their recipient in less than 20 seconds. We also helped our customers save on fees 一 £1.5 billion compared to banks in 2022 alone. 

“But there’s a long way to go. People and businesses are still being duped by hidden fees and losing over £180 billion each year to their banks. This is money they could have otherwise used to pay bills, expand their businesses or even save for a rainy day. We don’t accept it and we’re committed to solving this for everyone, everywhere.”

The new look is rolling out across Wise’s website and mobile apps, and across the company’s digital channels such as social media over the day from 7 am GMT.

Cohesity has announced that it has been named a Leader in the Omdia Universe: Protecting and Recovering Data in the Cloud Era, 2022–23 report.

Omdia, a global technology research leader, positioned Cohesity as a leading solution provider for its latest Omdia Universe for Data Protection and Backup in the Cloud report. Cohesity is recognised for its modernised data protection approach and strong capabilities in core backup and recovery, and monitoring and reporting. Additionally, Cohesity earned the top capability score, above other market vendors, due to its high ratings in solution breadth, roadmap and strategy, and solution capability – underscoring Cohesity’s robust innovations for data security and management, and value to customers. 

Other highlights in Omdia’s report include: 

• Strong Security and Ransomware Capabilities: Cohesity ranked at the top in the subcategory score in the security & ransomware category, largely in its capabilities to “protect the data from attack, detect an attack early, and recover rapidly from an attack” with automated management approaches. Cohesity grants customers the ability to safely recover their data through control over its storage repository and immutable backup architecture. 

• Cohesity DataProtect: Omdia acknowledged Cohesity’s unified and highly automated data protection solution offering easy recovery by eliminating the complexity found in traditional or legacy solutions. This is thanks to DataProtect’s data store mapping capabilities and more controlled appliance approach that is “paramount to providing near-instant recoverings, individual file restores and automating the process of recovery.”

• Cohesity Helios: Cohesity’s all-in-one management and reporting solution earned high reviews from Omdia with its holistic view of monitoring and recovery of data. Helios offers robust end-to-end monitoring and granular-level analysis to ensure operational efficiency and agility. 

• Quality Customer Experience: Cohesity received the highest recommendation score from its customers, proving Cohesity’s strength in delivering on customer experience beyond its technology. 

“Our customers continue to face an evolving and complex cybersecurity threat landscape, and the protection and recovery of their data remains our top priority,” said Lynn Lucas, CMO, Cohesity. “Omdia’s recognition further validates our commitment to providing innovative and reliable solutions to this growing challenge for our customers.”

VizyPay, an industry-disrupting payment processing fintech with a mission to empower small-town businesses with simple, reliable and transparent services, ranked No. 86 on the 2023 Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest. This prestigious list includes the fastest-growing private companies in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In VizyPay’s second consecutive appearance on the prestigious list, it ranked No. 2 in Iowa and No. 5 in financial services.

“Year after year, VizyPay is shaking up the Midwest by bringing innovation and opportunity to the region. Our transparent payments solutions, powerful technology and rapidly growing, dedicated team are reshaping the stagnant payments industry for the better,” said CEO and Founder Austin Mac Nab. “We’re proud to be a key pillar of the Midwest’s flourishing economy. By eliminating unnecessary payment processing fees, small business owners across rural America can keep more of their hard-earned money and reinvest it back into the communities they serve.”

The companies on this list show a remarkable rate of growth across all industries in the Midwest region. Between 2019 and 2021, the private companies on the list had an average growth rate of 535 percent and, in 2021 alone, they added 22,750 jobs and nearly $13.9 billion to the Midwest region’s economy.

“This year’s Inc. 5000 Regional winners represent one of the most exceptional and exciting lists of America’s off-the-charts growth companies. They’re disrupters and job creators, and all delivered an outsize impact on the economy. Remember their names and follow their lead. These are the companies you’ll be hearing about for years to come,” said Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. magazine.

Completely bootstrapped since its inception in 2017, VizyPay has achieved outstanding success, ranking No. 918 in America and No. 4 in Iowa on the 2022 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America with a three-year revenue growth of 695 percent. The company has rapidly expanded in recent years, installing more than 12,000 merchants across the nation, partnering with more than 700 independent sales contractors and onboarding 100 talented, in-house employees.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, metro area, and other criteria, can be found at inc.com/midwest.

Auriga, a global software provider for the omnichannel banking and payments industry, today announced a partnership with CMS Business Solutions, a Latin American financial technology solutions business, to collaborate on self-service banking technology for the Ecuadorian market.

Founded in 2003, CMS Business Solutions provides financial self-service hardware, software and maintenance services.

This new relationship reinforces Auriga’s position in the digital transformation of ATMs and banking environment in Latin America where the company already works with customers in Mexico and Guatemala. Among its biggest customers in the region, is 5B, which runs large ATM networks in several Latin American countries.

Through this partnership, CMS Business Solutions will distribute Auriga’s WinWebServer (WWS) solution in Ecuador. The solution enables banks and ATM operators to provide their customers with an efficient omnichannel banking experience including 24/7 access to personalised, real-time services, while delivering significant operational efficiencies.

Commenting on this new partnership, Vincenzo Fiore, CEO, and Founder of Auriga, “Latin America is key market for us and this new partnership with CMS will enable us to extend our presence into Ecuador which has a strong retail banking sector. Like us, CMS shares a passion for building customer-centric digital self-service banking solutions that transform the ATM channel and branch banking.”

Ricardo Guzman, General Director from CMS, added "At CMS Business Solutions we offer a wide range of services and now with the versatility of Auriga's multi-vendor software, cutting-edge interface, lead generation thanks to bank marketing, mobile integration and online monitoring. Working with Auriga, we will be able to offer our customers the ability to drive profitable customer relationships through the provision of personalised services, where and when customers need them.”

nCino, Inc., a pioneer in cloud banking for the global financial services industry, today announced that Johnson Financial Group (JFG), a privately-held financial services company and registered investment advisor, will be using nCino’s cloud banking platform across multiple lines of business, including Commercial, Small Business, Retail and Deposit Account Openings. JFG will also be adding nCino solutions for Commercial Pricing and Profitability, as well as Auto Spreading to further harness the advantage of a single platform. nCino’s customizable platform will help JFG modernize its front, middle and back offices and successfully put the customer at the centre of every interaction to ensure they have complete insight into their loan status at any point in the cycle.

“Our institution is built on trust, integrity, and a deep focus on providing the best-in-class financial service for our clients,” said Dan Defnet, EVP - President, Johnson Bank. “As Wisconsin's largest family-owned financial services company, we provide our clients with solutions that will help them thrive throughout their financial journey. nCino will be a catalyst in that journey across every aspect of our bank.”

With more than $6 billion in assets, JFG has been serving the families and clients of Wisconsin and Minnesota for more than 50 years. By selecting every solution on the nCino platform, JFG will add extensive value for their clients’ financial needs, eliminating siloed transformation, due to outdated legacy disparate systems, creating one open, single ecosystem.

“JFG is not only putting their client’s experience at the centre of everything, but they are making forward-looking change that can provide the very best experiences for every family that uses its services,” said nCino’s SVP of Community and Regional Banking Will Cameron. “JFG is laying the groundwork for a scalable and sustainable technological foundation, which will empower it further in providing its clients what they need, while still upholding its commitment to personal service and attention. We're incredibly proud to be working with JFG and eager to see the value that the nCino platform will bring.” 

Over 120 E-Invoicing and E-Reporting experts from 27 different countries celebrated on February 21 and 22, 2023 in Dubai the first MEA edition of the E-Invoicing Exchange  Summit. The agenda offered two days packed full of insights presented by global experts from corporates,  tax administrations, and solution and service providers. Speakers, panellists and participants shared and  openly discussed their experience and gave deep insights into what next steps have to be expected: 

+ Globally 50+ new mandates /obligations for E-Invoicing and E-Reporting announced + Tax administrations all over the globe see an opportunity to close tax gap 

+ For Europe ViDA expected to bring huge changes to the E-Invoicing and E-Reporting landscape + Egypt and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as first movers: blueprints for the MEA region? + In Africa a huge E-Invoicing / E-Reporting wave is expected to be seen over the next 5 years + Multinational companies challenged to comply with different regulatory and technical requirements + Corporates often faced with too short time frames for adopting their business processes to comply with  new and changing requirements 

+ Need for a egal, organisational, semantic and technical interoperability, that ideally would have to be  defined on a global scale and thus could serve as a strong accelerator for adoption and digitisation + Focus on overall optimisation of business processes; potential of end-to-end automation of processes  is much higher than "just" closing the tax gap 

The E-Invoicing Exchange Summit has proven once more to be a great opportunity to network with thought leaders and like-minded experts in the field of E-Invoicing and E-Reporting. Expecting the accelerating implementation and roll-out of E-Invoicing in the region, the E-Invoicing Exchange Summit team has already started to plan the next edition in Dubai in February 2024. 

Today, Coda Payments (“Coda”), the leading provider of cross-border payments and distribution solutions to digital content publishers, announced that it has partnered with award-winning RegTech provider Know Your Customer to simplify and accelerate its corporate onboarding processes across the Asia-Pacific region.

By integrating Know Your Customer’s corporate onboarding solution with its front-end and back-end operations, Coda is streamlining its due diligence operations on business prospects and clients, leveraging automation to achieve greater efficiency and an improved customer experience. Coda uses Know Your Customer’s single API to connect to company registries across 127 countries globally in real-time, retrieve the necessary official documents automatically, extract vital corporate information, unravel complex company charts, and identify ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) through documentary evidence as required by regulations. 

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Singapore, Coda is one of the leading providers of secure, cross-border monetisation solutions for digital products and services. The company helps digital content publishers unlock new revenue for their games, apps, and services in more than 60 territories worldwide. In 2022, Coda was named the 45th fastest-growing company in the Asia-Pacific region by the Financial Times, and has been named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

Know Your Customer is an award-winning regulatory technology (RegTech) company specialised in highly configurable corporate onboarding and Know Your Business (KYB) solutions for a variety of regulated sectors. Its live registry connections now cover all 50 states in the United States. In November 2022, Know Your Customer won the Silver ASEAN Award at the Singapore Fintech Festival Global Fintech Awards by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Keira Kwek, Global Compliance Lead at Coda, commented:

“Our new onboarding process, powered by Know Your Customer, is instrumental in enabling the fast and secure expansion of our customer base across multiple Asia-Pacific markets and globally. From the start, the Know Your Customer team demonstrated how their solution was able to provide both the real-time registry connections required by the compliance team, as well as the API capabilities sought by our engineering team to facilitate fast integration with our internal systems.”

Claus Christensen, CEO & Co-Founder of Know Your Customer, added:

“We are delighted to be working with Coda to enable their vision for seamless, straight-through corporate onboarding across the Asia-Pacific region. It is inspiring to see their commitment to both better customer experience and no-compromise compliance, a dual objective which can only be achieved through RegTech innovation. We look forward to supporting them on this journey and enabling their continued and ambitious commercial growth.”

BankiFi, a leading provider of embedded banking solutions, has released a new whitepaper in partnership with RedCompass Labs, a world leader in good and bad payments technology. Titled “SME Banking Channels: converting a money pit into a business opportunity,” the report explains the challenges banks face when offering digital solutions and how banks can most effectively and lucratively deliver cutting-edge technology.

The whitepaper found that, although most SMBs initially look to their financial institutions for payments and accounting services, most banks are unable or unwilling to provide solutions that are on par with third-party services. It further notes that a rise in open banking by about 30% shows that small businesses are increasingly turning towards third-party service providers.

It also reveals that, between technology costs and staffing costs, banks regularly struggle with the cost of ownership for their in-house digital channels. The report concludes by noting that banks are able to eliminate these costs by partnering with external service providers to offer top-of-the-line technology at the best price for the bank.

The whitepaper takes full inventory of the small business market in the United States, stating that small businesses make up 90% of all businesses in the country and employ roughly half of all Americans. The study also notes that small businesses in the U.S. spend about $225 billion annually on payments and accounting services.

“We’re seeing a real crisis for both banks and small businesses,” said Keith Riddle, CEO of BankiFi Americas. “There is plenty of demand for payments and accounting services among small businesses, but banks are disincentivized to offer those solutions given the current state of the market. Through external partners like BankiFi, banks can have the best of both worlds, offering the best technology with minimal cost to the bank itself.”

Kjeld Herreman, Head of Strategy Advisory at RedCompass Labs explained that “In our discussions with financial institutions, it became apparent that it was quite challenging for them to quantify the costs and the benefits associated with their SME banking channels. We’ve developed a model for banks to better understand these drivers in order to refine their channel strategies for this important client segment.”

Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the leading global financial centre in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region, has chosen anti-financial crime compliance specialist Napier to upgrade the screening services they employ with Napier Client Screening.

With the next-generation solution, the DIFC Authority will benefit from continuous large-scale client screening and re-screening capabilities to ensure it fulfils regulatory compliance requirements. The partnership will help DIFC safeguard its global reputation and vigilant adherence to international anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) standards.

As the Middle East’s largest financial ecosystem with more than 4,000 active registered companies, DIFC is also home to an independent and internationally recognised financial regulator. DIFC is home to 17 of the world’s top 20 banks, 25 of the world’s top 30 global systemically important banks, five of the top 10 insurance companies, five of the top 10 asset managers and many leading global law and consulting firms.

Jacques Visser, Chief Legal Officer at DIFC, said: “Dubai bridges the East and West, and DIFC facilitates significant trading and investment for the region. We are committed to maintaining our status as a great place to do business and, as such, we endeavour to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting the very latest technology to set the standards for financial compliance. We are delighted to be incorporating Napier’s Client Screening solution into our regulatory framework.”

The Napier Client Screening system will help DIFC to automatically screen and re-screen clients at relevant intervals against sanctions, blacklists, PEP lists, and other watchlists.

Greg Watson, CEO at Napier, commented: “DIFC is a central pillar of the financial and regulatory landscape in the Middle East. We’re proud to be supplying them with our advanced, robust screening capabilities and playing our part to help keep the district and the businesses based there safeguarded from financial crime risks.”

Dima Godfrey, Regional Sales Director at Napier, said: “As one of the many organisations that have selected the DIFC district for a UAE base, we look forward to building on the great relationship Napier has with the Centre.”

In addition to DIFC, Napier provides anti-financial crime solutions to many organisations across the MEASA region, including central banks, monetary agencies and crypto exchanges. It opened its Dubai office at the Centre in 2021.