Australia’s corporate regulator ASIC has secured a cooperation agreement with The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to nurture financial technology innovation and development across both jurisdictions.
 

New Zealand’s chief financial regulator, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), has for the first time published data from the country's peer-to-peer (P2P) lending sector, revealing the increasing prominence of alternative lenders in the NZ market.
 

AIA Hong Kong, a local subsidiary of pan-Asian life insurer AIA Group Limited, has announced it has developed and deployed a blockchain-enabled bancassurance network.
 

The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Payments Council, an association of 20 industry leaders from the banking, payments and business sector, has endorsed specification for a common Singapore Quick Response (QR) Code.
 

DBS Bank has announced it will become Singapore’s first bank to convert its traditional data centre into a cloud-optimised hub.
 

Singapore and Hong Kong’s chief financial regulators have announced they will jointly develop a “world first” cross-border trade platform powered by blockchain.
 

Chief executives are overwhelmingly the driving force behind financial services' customer-centric transformation, according to delegates at the 2017 Future of Financial Services conference, Sydney.
 

Five years in development and with 13 major Australian financial institutions locked in, the New Payments Platform (NPP) is set to move into a “full production live environment” this week – the first stage of the payment network's full public rollout.
 

NAB appears to be redoubling on its proposed expansion to its digitisation program, announcing 600 new digital and technology-focused positions within the company.
 

Collaboration, not competition, between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies will usher in the next wave of economic growth and prosperity, and drive an exponential increase in workforce efficiency, according to Jayne Opperman, Westpac’s GM business integration, group technology.

OCBC Bank has announced it has become Singapore’s first bank to offer facial recognition-based authentication to its customers.

Thailand’s Krungsri Bank (officially Bank of Ayudhya PCL) has announced it has successfully developed a blockchain-based clearance system to streamline the bank’s contract management process.
 

DBS bank has unveiled the “world’s largest” banking API developer platform, launching an unprecedented 155 separate APIs for the Singapore market.
 

National Australia Bank (NAB) has announced two major changes to its executive team, with the appointment of Anthony Healy as chief customer officer (CCO) – business and private banking, and Angela Mentis as managing director and chief executive of NAB subsidiary the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ).

October saw a number of high-profile appointments across the financial services sector, with noteworthy additions to Suncorp, Metlife, and Kiwibank.