A Play: Fortitude and Gentleness

Fingular, the Kuala Lumpur-headquartered fintech group behind the AhaPay buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, has secured a US$20 million credit facility from Silverstreak Group, a Singapore-based private credit investor. The money will expand Fingular’s near-prime consumer and SME financing, taking total funding for its Malaysian lending business past US$50 million. Near-prime borrowers sit just […] The post Fingular secures US$20M debt line to bet on Malaysia’s near-prime borrowers appeared first on e27.

There was a time when a bank in Southeast Asia could win customers simply by shipping an app that did not crash on payday. That era, a new study suggests, is over. Twimbit, the Singapore-based research and advisory firm, unveiled its inaugural State of CX in ASEAN Banking 2026 at the Twimbit Banking Summit & […] The post The 70/30 rule: Why ASEAN banks still need humans as AI takes over appeared first on e27.

Every Monday, as a marketer, I used to open nine tabs: Google Analytics, Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools the newsletter platform, the social scheduler and four ad accounts (Google/Meta/LinkedIn/TikTok) I would export, paste, reconcile and start thinking at about 11am. I do not open those tabs any more. Now, on any given Monday, I type […] The post How to use AI in marketing without opening a single dashboard appeared first on e27.

Shen Jiaoqi, a banker living in southern China’s Guangdong province, cannot stop watching microdramas. The shows are so addictive that she sometimes spends entire days gazing at her phone. One time, she even kept watching while she showered. “Honestly, I was watching for the eye candy rather than the plots,” she said. “The AI has really made the characters look stunning.” Shen is far from alone. Microdramas have exploded in popularity in China over the past few years, offering viewers a quick...

Open 10 startup websites. Cover the logos. Shuffle the pages. Nothing breaks. “Revolutionising how finance works.” “Trusted by industry leaders.” Nobody asks which leaders. The usual diagnosis is lazy copywriting. It lets the founder off. The real cause is worse: she did everything right. Imagine a Series A software company. Watch one sentence travel through […] The post Every department you add makes your startup harder to understand appeared first on e27.

Ask a typical AI assistant a question and it answers. Amit Suxena thinks that is already yesterday’s AI. “You don’t need AI where I ask a question and get an answer. I think that’s already passed,” says the GVP and Head of NetSuite Asia, who oversees Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Greater China for […] The post Thailand, not just Singapore, is Asia’s quiet AI surprise, says NetSuite’s Amit Suxena appeared first on e27.

MANILA, Philippines – I attended “SAFE Kids, SMART Policies: A Dialogue on Children’s Online Safety and Digital Rights,” organized by Gorriceta Africa Cauton & Saavedra at The Manila House on Thursday, October 22, to help get the discussion going and give the media, industry leaders, and fellow parents a better understanding of the two bills:

The Treasury Department on Wednesday sanctioned 10 individuals and one entity involved in an alleged scheme to defraud American businesses to benefit the North Korean military. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned eight North Korean nationals and two Russian nationals, accusing them of facilitating a government-run information technology (IT) scheme to generate...

Kalshi argued Tuesday that its VIP program and platform are "fundamentally different" from those offered by sportsbooks, after several Democratic lawmakers expressed concerns over loyalty programs at both prediction markets and sportsbooks. In a letter shared first with The Hill, the company suggested Kalshi Platinum has no "predatory incentives" because of its distinct business model....

Gene Simmons of KISS fame is urging the music world to get on board with artificial intelligence. The "Rock and Roll All Nite" singer was asked about his stance on AI on NewsNation's "The Hill with Blake Burman" on Tuesday, and whether the technology will be "good or bad" for music. The Hill and NewsNation...

As investor anxiety over an artificial intelligence bubble mounts, SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Nvidia chief Jensen Huang have offered starkly divergent outlooks on whether the specialist cloud providers powering the boom can survive their mounting debts. While Musk has warned of impending collapses and consolidation among the more than 200 dedicated graphics processing unit (GPU) rental ventures known as “neoclouds”, Huang remains bullish, insisting that robust market demand will unlock the capital...

Pokémon UNITE will end service in March 2027, just months after featuring in the Asian Games in Nagoya, where the Philippines took home a bronze medal. The Pokémon Company announced on October 27 that the multiplayer online battle arena game will shut down on March 23, 2027, ending service on both Nintendo Switch and mobile