The dawn of SEA’s payday revolution?

The Top Up is Tech in Asia’s free newsletter that breaks down the biggest stories and trends in fintech. [Read from your browser]( The Top Up 💵 Welcome to The Top Up! Delivered every Wednesday via email and through the Tech in Asia website, this free newsletter breaks down the biggest stories and trends in fintech. If you’re not a subscriber, get access by [registering here](. Written by Melissa Goh Journalist at Tech in Asia Hello {NAME} , I’m not one to mark my payday on the calendar, but once or twice a month, and especially when I’m making a larger purchase, I do think about whether the month’s salary has been credited into my bank account. I’m fortunate to be on a consistent and predictable payroll, but for the increasingly many who live on irregular paychecks, brought about by the pandemic or otherwise, startups that provide earned wage access (EWA) to employees could be a real game changer. These third-party providers calculate the monthly wages earned by an employee up to any point in time and make these funds available ahead of payday at a nominal fee. EWA startups work directly with employers, and withdrawals made by employees don’t count as a loan (and therefore have no interest). It’s a potentially lucrative field. At any given point in time, there is approximately US$1 trillion of payroll accrued in employers’ treasuries across [OECD countries]( before it is paid to employees, a study by Ernst & Young found last year. In our big story this week, Thu Huong Le dives into the payday revolution that's catching on in Southeast Asia and how it has the potential to change the lives of millions. THE BIG STORY  [Disrupting the paycheck in SEA: a billion-dollar market with social impact?]( Image credit: Timmy Loen Startups that help Southeast Asians draw wages before payday could also pull workers away from loan sharks. DEEP READ  1️⃣  [Stripe readies Indonesia entry, but the road just got rougher]( Photo credit: Stripe Over the past year, Stripe – the most valuable private company in the US valued at US$95 billion – has stepped up its efforts to enter Indonesia. The firm has been hiring key positions in legal and partnerships. Even for a large company like Stripe, rolling out its core payment gateway business in Indonesia will be no easy feat. In many Asian markets like Indonesia, online payments ecosystems are nowhere as mature as those in the developed markets where Stripe mainly operates. There’s also the extra legal legwork and an increasingly crowded space in back-end payments facilitation that Stripe will be wiggling into. Doku and Xendit, for instance, have recently received big capital injections. There’s also GoTo Group’s Midtrans to contend with. TRENDING NEWS Check out Tech in Asia’s coverage of Asia’s fintech scene [here](.  1️⃣  [Shares of Singapore online brokerage iFast hit record high]( Image credit: Timmy Loen The share price of iFast, the wealth management platform that owns the Fundsupermart.com brand, hit a record high of US$7.47 on Monday, pushing the market cap of the company to about US$2.1 billion during trading hours. The company cited its “strong growth prospects” in Hong Kong as a possible reason for the rally. Why it matters: After tepid trading on the Singapore Exchange for years since its public listing in 2014, iFast has become the city-state's best-performing stock in the past year. In fact, the company’s strong financial performance and growing assets under administration may make it Singapore’s [most underrated public internet company](.  2️⃣  [Tencent-backed PayMaya secures digital bank license in the Philippines]( Photo credit: Voyager Innovations Called Maya Bank, the digital bank will target unbanked consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises. PayMaya, the namesake of its existing payment and financial services app, allows users to send and receive money, pay bills, and make online payments. In a [June interview]( with TechCrunch, Voyager Innovations, the parent firm of PayMaya, said it would launch its neobank six months after it secures its license. Why it matters: Maya Bank joins five other digital bank licensees: UNObank, UnionDigital Bank, GOtyme, Overseas Filipino Bank, and Tonik Bank. PayMaya’s successful application also leaves just one final spot. In early September, the Philippine central bank said it would be putting a pause on digital banking applications to “better monitor” the performance of the industry, limiting the total number of digital banks to seven. As of 2019, [about 71% of Filipinos]( were unbanked. The central bank is looking to digitize half of the total volume of retail payments in the country and onboard 70% of Filipino adults to payment or transaction accounts as it works to achieve its [financial inclusion goals]( by 2023.  3️⃣  [Sequoia-backed Airwallex secures $200m funding at $4b valuation]( Airwallex CEO and co-founder Jack Zhang / Photo credit: Airwallex Australia-headquartered Airwallex, a global payments company that provides business banking services to mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, will use the funds to scale up its presence in the UK, Europe, North America, and other markets. Its revenues saw a year-on-year increase of 150% in the first half of 2021. Why it matters: Airwallex helps businesses embed financial services into their offerings, a [growing trend]( among tech companies seeking to add value and deepen their engagement with customers. In line with that goal, the startup has built an end-to-end payments stack that includes features like card issuance and cross-border payments. Today, Airwallex has over 50 banking partners, and it offers payments access across 95 countries - a number that’s going to grow further.  4️⃣  [Asian merchant commerce platform Pine Labs raises $100 million]( Photo credit: Pine Labs The latest fundraise comes on the heels of a US$600 million raise in July, which valued the firm at US$3 billion. Pine Labs works with hundreds of thousands of merchants in the region to provide point-of-sale terminals, financing support, and invoicing solutions. The company also says it processes tens of billions of payment transactions. It’s now looking to file for an initial public offering within the next two years. Why it matters: While many of its competitors work with just one bank, Pine Labs has dozens of bank integrations that allow its enterprise clients to offer multiple checkout methods with one point-of-sale terminal. The startup has also been expanding and scaling its array of payments solutions in Asia through acquisitions. Just months after snapping up fintech platform Fave in April, Pine Labs launched a [buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution called FavePay Later]( in Singapore and Malaysia.  5️⃣  [Scalapay raises $155m at a $700m valuation as buy now, pay later services continue to boom]( Headquartered in Milan, Italy, the two-year-old BNPL startup focuses on retail categories like fashion and luxury. Scalapay works with 3,000 merchants in Europe including Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, but it has yet to foray into the UK and the US. Unlike competitors that are moving into adjacent verticals of fintech and payments, Scalapay says it’s focused on improving the BNPL process. Why it matters: BNPL is increasingly seen as a rival to credit and debit cards, prompting financial firms to [study the issue]( and develop their own programs. It's also pushing credit card issuers to design better deals for merchants. Scalapay’s growth is significant, given its relative youth. It underscores just how bullish investors like Tiger Global - which led the round - are on this pandemic-driven trend. STARTUP WATCH 1️⃣  [Sequoia-backed fintech startup secures $31m series A money]( India-based [Bright Money]( runs an AI-driven personal finance platform called MoneyScience, which helps users control their debt and build wealth. The platform does this by drawing from “thousands of data points from a consumer’s financial life to infer, predict, and take financial decisions.”  2️⃣  [East Ventures Growth, GGV join series B round of Indonesian insurtech firm]( [Fuse]( which has operations in both Indonesia and Vietnam, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its series B round. The startup’s total gross written premiums grew 3x in 2020 to exceed US$50 million, making it the largest insurtech company in Indonesia. It’s working on expanding into Thailand and the Philippines next. That’s it for this edition - we hope you liked it! Not your cup of tea? You can unsubscribe from this newsletter by going to our preference center at the bottom of this email. In the meantime, if you have any feedback or ideas, feel free to get in touch with Terence, our editor-in-chief, at terence@techinasia.com. See you next week! P.S. 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