2022: Top five partnerships
Capping off 2022, FinTech Futures takes a look back at some of the year’s top fintech partnerships.
Working together, individual organisations and firms can achieve more. This year has seen a number of fintech partnerships spring up as they look to tackle problems, innovate and provide value for consumers across the world.
Here are five of the top fintech partnerships across 2022.
UK and Singapore strengthen fintech ties
UK and Singapore strengthen fintech partnership
The UK and Singapore have agreed to deepen their collaboration in the fintech sector and strengthen their financial cooperation, signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create a “Fintech Bridge” to remove regulatory barriers to fintech trade between the two nations.
The MoU was signed at the 7th Financial Dialogue in Singapore, building on the Regulatory Cooperation Agreement signed in 2016 which aligned the two countries closely at the regulatory level.
The MoU will serve to maintain regular dialogue between the two countries’ regulators and businesses, boosting growth and investment opportunities within their respective fintech sectors.
Sustainable finance and the move to net zero, digital banking and e-wallets, innovation, payments, regtech, greenwashing, crypto and digital assets, and wealth management will all be a particular focus as both countries renewed their commitment to deepening the UK-Singapore Financial Partnership that was agreed in 2021.
US banking sector launches digital asset settlement proof of concept
A group of US banking sector heavyweights, working with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has launched a proof of concept (PoC) for a regulated digital asset settlement platform.
Private sector financial institutions including BNY Mellon, Citi and Wells Fargo are looking to explore the feasibility of an interoperable digital money platform called the regulated liability network (RLN), powered by distributed ledger technology (DLT).
The 12-week PoC will operate in US dollars, with commercial banks issuing tokens representing customer deposits and settling through simulated central bank reserves on a shared distributed ledger. The aim is to see if such technologies could improve financial settlements.
Blockchain firm SETL partners Swift for common tokenisation framework pilot
SETL partners Swift for common tokenisation framework pilot
Enterprise distributed ledger technology (DLT) and blockchain firm SETL has successfully piloted a common framework for Swift that links tokenisation systems between central securities depositories (CSDs) and global custodians.
Swift, SETL, Deutsche Börse-owned Clearstream, Northern Trust and other parties from the tokenised and traditional asset ecosystem explored the issuance, delivery versus payment (DVP) and redemption processes needed to support a frictionless tokenised asset market.
The experiments, which utilised SETL’s PORTL, a permissioned toolset for financial institutions to build applications that interoperate between existing infrastructures and a range of enterprise ledger technologies, leveraged existing forms of payments and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
BNP Paribas partners fintechs to develop digital asset custody offering
BNP Paribas Securities Services has partnered with fintechs Fireblocks and Metaco to develop its new digital asset custody offering.
The new combined solution will allow clients to issue, transfer and securely keep regulated digital assets.
BNP Paribas Securities Services head of digital assets Wayne Hughes says the partnerships “will allow us to extend our custody offering to a wider scope of regulated digital assets as the market evolves”.
The banking multinational has selected Fireblocks for its hot wallet, tokenisation and connectivity infrastructure layer, while Metaco will integrate its digital asset custody and orchestration platform into the bank’s existing infrastructure.
Hong Kong’s Planto partners NZ fintech Cogo to promote sustainability
Planto partners Cogo for new software
Hong Kong-based banking solutions provider Planto has partnered with New Zealand’s carbon footprint tracking firm Cogo to develop banking software that encourages sustainability, according to South China Morning Post.
The software, developed jointly by the firms, will enable consumers and small businesses to view their daily carbon footprint linked to their spends and operations, while providing suggestions on how to cut down their emissions.
“Planto and Cogo have partnered to create awareness about sustainability through partnerships with banks in Hong Kong,” Planto says.
“With one of the highest banking penetration rates in Asia, Hong Kong banks stand to play a crucial role in promoting sustainability and green initiatives to consumers,” it adds.
