In most parts of the world, the fifth-generation (5G) networks are still on the brink of rollout — but not China. 

The Asian nation of 1.4 billion is way ahead of the game as it houses the largest and most advanced standalone 5G network, covering all prefecture-level cities.

In fact, more than 97% of counties and 40% of towns in China have access to 5G, data by the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) shows.

To put in context just how advanced China is when it comes to the adoption of 5G, MIIT data also shows that the country has built over 1.15 million 5G base stations.

These millions of stations alone account for more than 70% of the world’s total, according to Xie Cun, MIIT’s head of the Information and Communication Development Department.

To top it off, China is also the largest market for 5G smartphones, mainly due to the fact that a wider range of devices that support the network at different prices are made available.

Data by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), a research institute under the MIIT, shows that China’s 5G phone shipments in November alone amounted to 28.97 million units, a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 43.9%.

5G GOES LIVE IN MALAYSIA AT LONG LAST

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The industry report also indicated that the proportion of its shipments in total mobile phone shipments reached an all-time monthly high of 82.2%. In terms of the domestic market, total mobile phones shipped topped 35.25 million units last month, expanding 19.2% YoY, the CAICT said.

As for the first 11 months of the year, the country’s 5G phone shipments totaled 239 million units, a 65.3% rise compared to the same period last year, accounting for 75.3% of the total shipments.

A 5G dream that sets China apart from the rest

China is aiming to get 56% of the country on 5G networks by the end of its 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), up from 15% in 2020.

According to a local report, the number of 5G terminal users in the country has reached 450 million, accounting for more than 80% of the world’s total, he said.

Data provider GSMA Intelligence said in a November report that the country’s 5G connections are expected to reach 865 million by 2025, accounting for 40% of the global total.

Currently, according to the China Internet Development Report (2021), last year alone, the number of 5G users in China exceeded 160 million; or 89% of the total number of 5G users in the world. 

Overall, China has taken the lead in the world’s 5G network rollout.

The country’s 5G technology bellwether, Huawei has even made further progress, saying it will launch its 6G networks by 2030, a network that is 50 times faster than 5G. 

The post 5G phones are selling like hot cakes in China appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Malaysia, after much delay, officially rolls out the first batch of publicly accessible fifth-generation (5G) mobile coverage in three main city areas. The country has also set a goal to have 80% of its population accessible to 5G mobile coverage by 2024. 

At this point, the 5G access will be provided by two of the country’s oldest mobile operators Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) and YTL Communications Sdn Bhd, to their respective customers within the said coverage areas. The rollout took place amid an ongoing impasse amongst local telco providers over the government’s decision to have a single wholesale 5G network.

The government has mandated Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB), a wholly-owned unit by the country’s Minister of Finance (Incorporated), to be the single neutral party to undertake the deployment of 5G infrastructure and network nationwide. DNB has been collaborating with relevant stakeholders including Ericsson, which is the appointed network equipment provider (NEP), local mobile network operators (MNOs) and other licensees, site owners, fiber optics providers, power and utility players, as well as financial institutions.

The move to adopt a single wholesale network concept was largely unaccepted by industry players especially MNOs on the basis that a state-run network could hamper competition. To recall, Malaysia’s government in February scrapped a plan to apportion spectrum to carriers, opting instead for a single shared network in a bid to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and accelerate infrastructure buildup.

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That decision left carriers worried that it would result in a nationalized monopoly which would be more costly than deploying 5G on their own. DNB however has emphasized that it will charge operators less to access its 5G network than the cost they incurred for 4G.

Looking back at a report by Reuters last month, the impasse between mobile operators and DNB was brewing due to concerns over pricing and transparency issues. In fact, major wireless carriers have recommended the government to allow two wholesale 5G networks, each to be built and operated by a consortium of carriers. The cabinet eventually, after much back and forth, informed that a decision will be made by next January on whether to allow multiple 5G providers. 

Other players on 5G roll out in Malaysia

TM and YTL Communications are the first two companies to take advantage of DNB’s offer of free wholesale 5G services to all MNOs that are integrated into the DNB network. According to both players, end-users with 5G-compatible devices will be able to enjoy an average speed of 100 Mbps. “This means a user at the weakest point of 5G coverage would on average receive 100 Mbps on a 5G-compatible device,” the press release reads.

DNB’s CEO Ralph Marshall said his unit provides wholesale 5G services to the MNOs at a significantly lower cost than their present cost to produce 4G capacity. “MNOs should therefore be able to offer lower prices to their customers for mobile services, which will include 5G services,” he said during his opening remarks at the launch earlier today.

Since DNB is the sole provider of wholesale 5G services, it will not be competing with the industry in providing 5G retail services to end-users. Instead, DNB’s Ralph said they will be complementing efforts by the MNOs with a view to accelerating adoption of 5G in the country. Currently, local players are recommending the government to allow two wholesale 5G networks. In hindsight, YTL objected to the plan and expressed support for a single 5G network. Telekom Malaysia on the other hand said it would back any decision made by the government.

DNB’s COO Ahmad Taufek Omar told reporters after the launch on Wednesday that DNB is seeking to finalize its wholesale agreements with carriers during the initial 5G rollout period until March next year and hopes to sign long-term contracts with them at the same time. Operators that sign up to its wholesale plan before March 31 will receive further free access to all additional 5G capacity during the initial period of operation, it said.

Among the device manufacturers that support 5G in Malaysia are Honor, Huawei, Nokia, Oppo, Realme, Samsung devices under the Galaxy S21 series, Vivo, Xiaomi, and even ZTE. DNB said they are targeting to add several other manufacturers including Apple, Motorola, Asus, a number of Samsung devices including the Flip 3, as well as TCL.

The post 5G goes live in Malaysia at long last appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Bangladesh is joining more than 60 other countries with the fifth generation of mobile internet connectivity. The country introduced 3G cellular technology in October 2012 and 4G technology in February 2018.

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Bangladeshis to benefit from Nokia and Teletalk 5G network

The country has 17.69 million cellular subscribers and 12 million mobile Internet users among four cellular operators.

Only 28% of subscribers have used 4G networks, while the adoption of smartphones is 41%. Experts say that the technology is set to change how people use their phones and consume data for consumers and businesses.

Users will benefit from faster internet and smoother telecommunications services after introducing the 5G technology.

The commercial test will be rolled out through a cluster-wide deployment in the Dhaka metropolitan area at 200 locations by 2022, focusing on commercial and government offices.

The technology will help develop smart manufacturing through cloud-based wireless robotic control, wireless electronic health services, and live broadcasting in social networks.

“We’re thrilled to be the first company in Bangladesh to deliver 5G, as part of our broader vision for enhancing connectivity,” said Shafin Ahmed, CEO of Teletalk.

“5G is a major milestone for us and we look forward to furthering our efforts on introducing innovative technologies that improve the lives of consumers,” he added.

The technology behind the 5G roll-out

In the initial deployment phase, Nokia will provide equipment from its latest ReefShark System on Chip-powered AirScale equipment portfolio, including its 5G AirScale Digital Baseband Unit with a plugin capability to add capacity where it is needed.

It will also supply its high-performance 64TRX AirScale massive MIMO Adaptive Antennas to cover all deployment scenarios, including dense-urban environments and wide-area coverage.

“We are delighted to continue our longstanding partnership with Teletalk and take it into the 5G era. Teletalk and the Bangladeshi government have broad ambitions to drive societal change through a foundation of 5G networks. The network expansion and modernization initiative will help Teletalk attract new subscribers in the rural region and reduce churn in the urban areas. Our global experience will enable Teletalk to offer enhanced customer experience to its subscriber”, said Mark Atkinson, Senior Vice President, Radio Access Networks PLM at Nokia.

5G technology to change society

“4G has changed life, 5G will change society. And we are happy to be a part of this key initiative towards that journey. We shall partner with Teletalk to build the necessary infrastructure for a superior 5G network,” Kevin Xu, chief technical officer at Huawei Bangladesh, said in a statement.

“Initially, we have been chosen to provide more than 65% of initial 5G sites. Huawei has been working in Bangladesh to build a fully connected, intelligent nation for more than 21 years and we will responsibly continue this journey.”

The prime minister’s ICT affairs adviser, Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed, inaugurated the 5G service virtually as chief guest.

The post Nokia and Teletalk roll out 5G in Bangladesh appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Regardless of your take on cryptocurrencies, the fact remains that these digital assets are gradually becoming a significant part of the payments world. Simply put, cash will not remain king forever and that is what Mastercard –a leader in global payments– believes in. In fact, Mastercard has begun offering its customers access to crypto-linked debit, credit cards and digital wallets, as well as cryptocurrency-based loyalty rewards programs.

Earlier this month, the American-based multinational financial services corporation teamed up with three leading cryptocurrency service providers in Asia Pacific and launched crypto-funded Mastercard payment cards for the first time in the region. The digital asset service providers — Hong Kong’s crypto finance firm Amber Group, , Bitkub in Thailand, and CoinJar in Australia — have all begun allowing consumers and businesses in their respective market within the region to apply for crypto-linked Mastercard credit, debit or prepaid cards. Those cards will then enable them to instantly convert their cryptocurrencies into traditional fiat currency.

In a conversation with Tech Wire Asia (TWA), Mastercard Asia Pacific’s executive vice president, digital & emerging partnerships and new payment flows Rama Sridhar shared the company’s strategy in the digital assets space especially with its take on cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Mastercard tapped into the western market first in offering cryptocurrency products and services. How has the acceptance been and how do you foresee it to be for the Asia Pacific markets?

From a global perspective, adoption rates for emerging payment options have always been better within the Asian region. There are however, a few reasons as to why Asia leads the world in this. Firstly, based on Mastercard’s New Payments Index conducted across 18 markets globally last year, 94% of consumers in the Asia Pacific region are considering using emerging payment methods this year. 

Mastercard sees the emerging payment methods are QR code, digital wallet, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) payment, cryptocurrencies and biometric among others. That said, the desire and enthusiasm to adopt a new payment method in this part of the world is very strong. The second thing is a high population of Asians that completely operates across borders, whether via online purchases or physical travel. Therefore, there is a higher expectation for a more global, seamless, interoperable framework within Asia than most of the developed Western economies. Right. 

Which country within the Asia Pacific region would Mastercard reckon to be the most accepting of cryptocurrencies?

There are more consumers in Thailand and India that are very comfortable in using cryptocurrencies as compared to a very developed market like Australia. Even Vietnam and Indonesia are expanding at double digit rates at this point so putting these factors together only spells out well for emerging payment methods.

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That itself tells a story of Asia’s developing economies, where the cash runway is very high. Not forgetting how, according to the United Nations, over 60% of the world’s youth live in Asia-Pacific, which translates into more than 750 million young women and men aged 15 to 24 years. 

Now when crypto matures over the next three to four years, a lot of these play people would either be learning adults or have started their careers. In short, Asia Pacific is demographically set up for higher adoption rates and that is probably the best way to think about it. As it is, almost 30% of the global value of crypto transactions is happening in Asia so it is inevitable for the region to be global leaders when it comes to the future of money.

What was the tipping point when Mastercard realized it was time to accept cryptocurrencies into the payment network?

Mastercard’s philosophy on cryptocurrencies is pretty straightforward: It’s about choice. We are not here to recommend you start using cryptocurrencies. But we are here to enable customers, merchants and businesses to move digital value – traditional or crypto – however they want. It should be your choice, it’s your money.

Within the Mastercard network itself, we noticed a large volume of people using cards to buy crypto assets, especially during Bitcoin’s recent surge in value. We are also seeing users increasingly take advantage of crypto cards to access these assets and convert them to traditional currencies for spending.

Above all, we have and will continue to be very thoughtful about which assets we support based on our principles for digital currencies, which focus on consumer protections and compliance. Currently, we have over 30 crypto card program partnership and to be completely clear, not all of today’s cryptocurrencies are and will be supported on our network. 

But if you look at the stablecoins, which are either backed by a basket of fiats, or a single fiat, those are gaining significant acceptance. To top it off, stablecoins are more regulated and reliable than in the recent past and it’s those very same stablecoins that we expect to bring into our network.

Tell us more about your take on CBDC and  the “safe space” Mastercard provides for governments and private sector banks to figure out how those work?

Around last year, we announced this proprietary testing platform for central banks which basically allows for central banks to engage in a simulated environment where they can issue the currency and distribute it between banks, financial institutions and consumers in a virtual world to fathom how it could and would work in a real world. In doing so, it will allow banks to identify and strategize how to launch central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and how to create the ideal regulatory environment. 

Truth be told, today, almost every central bank is actually exploring CDBC not just because they want to issue it immediately, but because it is leading to be a necessary part of the ecosystem. With that, creating the framework, the rules, and evaluating what is the best way to do it is just a timely move. And for Mastercard, anything the central bank does as principles, will automatically be the principles that we will assume. That is how we move on with our partnerships.

Across all of the developing economies, and in Asia in particular, going cashless is the main agenda for central banks. With that, many central bankers believe that CBDCs offer great potential to bring people into the digital financial system. 

The other other real agenda on central banks’ radar is transparency. Hence why every government and regulators are moving towards this direction. Yes, it’s not the only way to do it, but it is a good way to do it and it facilitates fast access to the currency for the populations, where the circulation of physical cash may be limited.

Do you think a CBDC future will dawn upon us sooner than later?

To aid digital transformation, financial and digital inclusion as well as remove cash, CBDCs are the way forward. Will it happen over the next two year or five years? Unfortunately, I can’t predict but I think there is a lot of framework and work that needs to be done. There will no doubt be a lot of debates between central banks — on the good and the bad of how things need to be managed. They will have to ensure that other existing payment ecosystems sit harmoniously alongside CBDCs.

The post Mastercard: The future of money revolves around cryptocurrencies, CBDCs appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Less than a month ago, Microsoft-owned professional networking platform, LinkedIn, pulled its plug on China due to the local government’s tight grip on foreign companies. Unfortunately, Beijing’s wide-ranging regulatory clampdown has also been putting pressure on numerous other tech giants, with the latest to fall victim being Yahoo Inc. and Epic Games’ Fortnite.

American gaming giant Epic, announced yesterday that it will shut the local Chinese version of its popular game “Fortnite” on November 15, according to an update on its website. New account registrations were already prohibited since November 1, this year.

Known as the “Fortress Night,” in China, Epic launched it in 2018 through a partnership with publisher Tencent, who is also a significant investor in Epic, owning a 40% stake in the firm. The game technically never passed its “test” mode for the last three years, as Tencent never received approval to sell in-app items and monetize from the game.

Although Epic didn’t provide a specific reason as to why it was shutting down Fortnite in China, the exit was announced two months after Beijing introduced new rules that severely restricts young gamers’ playtime. New game approvals have also been on hold ever since.

As per Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad’s tweet, “The battle royale genre has been strictly regulated in China. The domestic games that are approved there have heavy content changes.”

What pushed Yahoo out of China?

“Increasingly challenging business and legal environment” — That is Yahoo’s exact reason for exiting China after two long decades of striving in a highly regulated market. The company however claims that it “remains committed to the rights of our users and a free and open internet.”

“In recognition of the increasingly challenging business and legal environment in China, Yahoo’s suite of services will no longer be accessible from mainland China as of November 1,” the company said in a statement. Yahoo follows a series of other tech giants including Google and Facebook that have exited China over the last few years.

Their departure however didn’t leave a void in the local Chinese market. In fact, China gave birth to an alternative internet, consisting of its own digital giants. For example, the Baidu search engine has largely replaced Yahoo over the years and Google in China, whereas WeChat and Weibo are the leading social media platforms there.

Yahoo’s demise from the Chinese market however is not as abrupt because the company has been downsizing its operations there for a while now. First, in the early 2010s, Yahoo forgo a music and email service and by 2015, it shuttered its Beijing office.

What sets Yahoo’s departure apart from the rest though, is how it coincides with the implementation of China’s Personal Information Protection Law, which limits what information companies can gather. The law also stipulated how data must be stored locally and that companies operating in the country must hand over data if requested by authorities. This in turn has made it difficult for Western firms like Yahoo and LinkedIn, to operate in China as they may also face pressure back home for bowing to China’s demands.

The post Yahoo, Fortnite leaves China as crackdown on big tech intensifies appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

About a year ago, on September 15, 2020, the US officially cut off Huawei from all suppliers, whose products contain US technologies, prompting many overseas media to speculate then whether Huawei, which has been reliant upon chip imports, can survive such a ban. Yet, against all odds, Huawei’s business performance exceeded market expectations and the company is even ready to put China at the forefront of 6G wireless technology development.

In fact, in defiance of a US crackdown on the Chinese tech giant, founder, and CEO Ren Zhengfei told employees to “break limits in the sky” and set global standards for the emerging industry. It also signals the company’s resilience despite a year-long US ban. According to a NikkeiAsia report, the Chinese tech giant’s plans to develop 6G also arrives as the US and Japan also push ahead with the next-gen telecom tech. 

The report even mentioned an internal company document that states the brand’s intention to continue to develop 5G and Artificial Intelligence businesses while also moving forward in next-generation technology. If there would be any hurdle in their ambitious 6G plans, it would likely come in the form of the US, which has imposed various sanctions in the past that had essentially crippled its once notable smartphone business. 

The company reported its largest-ever revenue decline in the first half of 2021, mainly due to its lackluster smartphone business. Although the founder acknowledged the effects of these US trade restrictions, he added that “Our research into 6G is preparation against a rainy day, and we aim to seize the ground of 6G patents. We must not wait until 6G becomes viable, as waiting would impose constraints on us due to a lack of patents.”

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Currently, 6G has become a point of competition between major economies. China has prioritized 6G technologies as one of its key research areas for a while now, while the US and Japan are pouring money into 6G development, including its use in satellite technologies — one of America’s strong suits.

Notably, both Japan and the US actually lags behind China in terms of 5G development and deployment.

6G for China by 2030? 

When the Chinese telecom giant unveiled its 6G plans, it aimed to launch 6G products around 2030. The target was not changed but the barriers to achieving such a goal are becoming more notable. The company’s rotating chairman Eric Xu Zhiju in a recent book preface — which was published on Huawei’s online community Xinsheng — discussed the obstructions.

According to Xu, 6G has a more complicated technology environment than 5G, with the impact likely to come from multiple technologies like cloud computing, blockchain, and big data. He disclosed that Huawei started investment in 6G research in 2017 when it was pushing 5G commercialization. 

“Huawei will define 5.5G and research 6G at the same time in the next few years, and it is a test of the whole industry’s imagination and creativity whether 6G can surpass (5G and 5.5G technologies),” Xu wrote.

Inevitably though, the shadow of geopolitical uncertainties hanging over the research and development of 6G technologies may still lead to the exclusion of Huawei from overseas markets in 6G products. 

“Whether the industries can achieve satisfying results (in 6G development) around 2030 largely depends on such factors as if the process of defining 6G is open enough, whether the participants are pluralistic, and if the communication is thorough enough,” Xu said. He also noted that Huawei is willing to hold discussions with companies and industries that might need 6G technologies to define 6G jointly. 

While the US and China are already fighting for 6G dominance, most of the world is yet to experience the benefits of a 5G network. Analysts have been saying it for a while now — that if political tensions worsen, it’s also possible that 6G will have two sets of standards instead of one which may, in turn, increase the costs of connectivity and bring losses to global companies.

Overall, years of acrimony under the Trump administration have no doubt, hit Chinese technology companies hard, but that hasn’t stopped the country from emerging as the leader in 5G. China has the world’s largest 5G footprint, and — despite multiple attempts by the US to take it on — Huawei towers over rival 5G vendors globally, mostly by offering attractive prices.

The post Huawei leads China to dominate 6G race against US & Japan appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The final act of the delayed Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics took place last Sunday, almost eight years to the day after the Japanese capital was awarded the Games. When it comes to major sporting events, scammers have always jumped on the opportunity to ply their trade — and the Tokyo Olympics were no different. This summer games saw fake streaming services as the biggest threat.

Since the Rio 2016 Olympics, online streaming of sporting events has increased. To be fair, it is an international game attracting billions of viewers across the globe — and between cord-cutting and Covid-19, more viewers streamed the recent Summer Olympic games than ever before.  As major sporting events become increasingly digitized, sports officials are increasingly concerned about cybersecurity. Experts reckon digital technologies pose an increasingly diverse set of threats to Olympic events, and the newer forms of threat are likely to have more serious consequences. 

Despite the FBI’s warning that cybercriminals would target the Olympic Games this summer, it did not stop cybercriminals, in fact, most of them are getting extra creative with the campaigns designed to harvest credentials. Two separate reports by Kaspersky experts and Zscaler’s ThreatLabz analyzed Olympic-related phishing attacks and found fake pages offering streaming services, tickets to events that won’t have spectators, and even a fake Olympic Games virtual currency.

Live Streams

During the summer games, Zscaler’s ThreatLabz observed multiple instances of suspicious streaming services that weren’t associated with any of the official Olympic streaming providers. Instead, these websites claimed to provide free access to watch the games online before requesting payment credentials from customers.

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After users register for access to these illegitimate streaming sites, they were directed to a fake payment portal that was used to harvest their credit card numbers and other payment information. Most of the streaming transactions observed were from the United States and Europe, with Germany and France leading in transactions. Within the Asia Pacific countries, India and Japan led the way. The importance and popularity of the event make it a target for cyberattacks, with threat actors installing malicious software from ransomware to coin miners.

On the other hand, Kaspersky experts found various phishing pages offering streaming services for the games. The trick is that users have to register to watch. Those registration pages are phishing schemes and, “once a user enters their credentials, they might be redirected to a page that distributes different malicious files,” according to Kaspersky. 

Basically, the fake streaming sites scams highlighted are a double whammy, delivering malware and harvesting user credentials.  To top it off, some fraudsters are still trying to sell tickets to the games even with no live audiences this year.  Kaspersky experts also discovered pages offering refunds for already purchased tickets.

Olympic-themed adware

Zscaler also observed Olympic-themed adware activity during the Tokyo Olympics that claimed to offer free streaming services.

However, users were instead redirected to unrelated sites for online gambling, auto-trading, and other topics. According to their blog posting, it also saw cases where users were redirected to install adware in the form of browser extensions and fake software updaters. 

OlympicDestoyer

To top it off, the sophisticated malware OlympicDestroyer, which first appeared online during the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, was also observed in the wild this summer as cybercriminals brought it back for the latest Olympic Games. 

At its core, OlympicDestoryer is a worm that spreads using Windows network shares and drops multiple files onto a victim’s machine that tries to steal their browser and system credentials.

Fake virtual currency 

Kaspersky researchers found a fake virtual token of the event — by cybercriminals masquerading as a charity. To convince people to buy it, the scammers say that the fundraiser will support athletes who are in need of financial support. Kaspersky’s security expert Olga Svistiunova said, “Cybercriminals always use popular sporting events as bait for cyber attacks.

We see that fraudsters have no limits when it comes to creating ways to profit. For example, the phishing that sells an Olympic Games virtual currency shows that cybercriminals are not only using existing baits but are also creating sophisticated and creative ideas.”

A lesson for upcoming Olympics

It is axiomatic as it is, that not all cyberattacks are created equal. Yet when it comes to major sporting events, there has been no coherent effort to categorize the risks that are particular to these types of events, and/or to enable officials to prioritize among the various types of attacks. 

To date, there are four significant categories of cyberattacks on major sporting events: the infiltration of sporting websites and IT systems; tickets-related scams; the hacking and release of sensitive athlete data; and the risk of fans being hacked while attending an event.

This will change—and quickly. The increased ‘technification’ of sports will continue and even accelerate, over the next seven or so years. There are huge possible future risks that will come to fruition as technology continues to change.  Perhaps, past Olympic cyber-related issues and the most recent ones could shed light on how the Olympic movement can keep up with the rapid pace of cybercriminals activity.

The post From fake streaming sites to adware, Tokyo has lesson for future Olympics appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Australian fintech Airwallex that recently launched its services in the United States — the first North American country where it maintains a presence — continues its international growth momentum. This time, the company has secured a money services business (MSB) license issued by Malaysia’s Central Bank.

Its entry into Malaysia marks another milestone for Airwallex as the company sets its sights on growing its presence in Southeast Asia, with teams in Singapore and Malaysia to support ASEAN businesses. Currently, the fintech unicorn backed by Tencent Holdings and Sequoia Capital China, has licenses and is operational in Australia, Hong Kong, the UK & EU, and the US.

Airwallex continuous expansion reflects the fintech’s company’s global growth strategy aimed at achieving its vision to become the global financial infrastructure for businesses to operate anywhere, anytime. Currently, the company offers a business account that includes cards, international collection & transfer, and other value-add solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, and an API for larger enterprise businesses that require embedded payments and financial services. 

The six-year-old company is now one of the fastest-growing financial technology companies with a global team of over 900 employees. Earlier this year, Airwallex announced an additional Series D capital raise of US$100 million which increased its valuation to US$2.6 billion.

What does Airwallex’s presence in Asia look like?

For its latest venture in this region, businesses in Malaysia from early next year can enjoy fast, transparent, and cost-effective international payments in multiple currencies. Through the Airwallex platform, they will have the ability to collect funds from customers across the globe in different currencies, convert and payout into preferred currencies.

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CEO and Co-founder Jack Zhang said “For many businesses, operating across borders is expensive, time-consuming and cumbersome. This pain point is exactly why we started Airwallex. From day one, we set out with a purpose to empower businesses of all sizes to grow without borders.” 

“Malaysia-based businesses have been looking to tap into Southeast markets to remain competitive, requiring a trusted payment partner for their regional and global expansion. With this new license, Airwallex aims to replicate the success that it has achieved from servicing leading companies in other regions with businesses in Malaysia.

“Our solutions will help both local and global businesses in Malaysia focus on their international operations and expansion, without having to navigate the nuances of establishing their own cross-border financial infrastructure.” Zhang continued.

Other recent progress within the Asian region includes Airwallex teaming up with Visa in June this year to offer a “borderless” virtual card for businesses in Hong Kong as competition for business-to-business payments intensifies. The card allows customers in Hong Kong to generate single-use and multi-use cards for online payments to vendors and other merchants in more than 140 currencies where Visa is accepted. It is not a traditional credit card but instead linked to a business’s Airwallex account.

Cross border payments disruption in Southeast Asia

According to a report by ACI Worldwide and fintech market research and consulting firm Kapronasia, Southeast Asia is becoming a global focal point for cross-border real-time payments growth.  Nearly every country in the region has a domestic real-time payment infrastructure in place.

The increased adoption of the ISO 20022 standard is enabling streamlined communication between payment systems and additional overlay services like DuitNow in Malaysia, PayNow in Singapore, and PromptPay in Thailand.

ACI Worldwide MD for Asia, Leslie Choo said, “Southeast Asian countries are making significant strides in payments modernization, with nearly every major country in the region having robust domestic real-time payments infrastructure in place.

Despite the lack of uniform regulations and disparate economic priorities across the region, it’s clear that market forces — driven by the needs of businesses and consumers — will propel Southeast Asia towards the realization of a multi-country real-time network.”

The post Australia’s Airwallex expands to SEA starting with Malaysia appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Cloud systems, data centers, and departmental servers connecting remote employees and the company’s data have become even more vital. With the technology demands, organizations have to adapt quickly to changing requirements to ensure business continuity.

This results in a more distributed organization and IT network, and even when COVID can be contained, 53% of newly remote workers want to stay remote.

Network infrastructure and operations teams have become more stretched.  Operational complexity has increased with the complications from a remote workforce, the need to provide secure connectivity to services hosted in the cloud and data centres, and the rapid growth of IoT connected devices.

Companies are continuing to increase cloud, IoT, and other technologies to accelerate their digital strategies. One of the ways to reduce IT complexity is to deploy a unified network infrastructure that is centrally managed via a single point of control.

Specifically designed to simplify the network management lifecycle and address fragmented network operations is the Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform).

Aruba ESP’s key component — Aruba Unified Infrastructure embraces a single operational model across the infrastructure. This unifies and improves IT operations with a cloud-native single point of control for WLAN, LAN, and SD-WAN across campus, branch, remote worker, and data center locations.

Aruba Central orchestrates Aruba’s Unified Infrastructure by providing the scalability and resilience needed for mission-critical environments across the distributed edge.

Being the command center, Aruba Central delivers management through a single-pane-of-glass, allowing IT to provide a full range of intelligent edge services, including:

• AIOps to ensure the best user experience at all times, irrespective of location.
• Automation and orchestration to accelerate deployments and simplify ongoing change windows.
• Software-defined policies to streamline and reinforce security postures.

Aruba strengthens security postures without disrupting the performance of networks by providing operators with the ability to balance security and access requirements for users, devices, and applications. At the same time, embedded AIOps enables IT to continuously monitor and proactively resolve issues before end users are impacted, eliminating network downtime by immensely reducing the need to plan for any scheduled network maintenance or resolve unplanned outages.

The key benefits of Aruba’s Unified Infrastructure are:

• Improve IT efficiency with a cloud-native single pane of glass for WLAN, LAN, and SD-WAN operations across campus, branch, remote worker, and data center locations.
• Optimize user experience with AI-powered insights that find and fix issues before the business is impacted.
• Simplify and strengthen security with policies that are easily deployed and enforced across all network domains.
• Right-size costs with flexible deployment models that supplement existing IT resources and preserve budgets.
• Gain extensibility and accelerate innovation by easily integrating with existing Aruba and third-party infrastructure.

Understanding the need to become one of the most connected organizations in operation is Singapore Press Holdings Limited (SPH). The company made the decision to modernize by deploying ClearPass as a single management tool providing full visibility over many types of endpoints. ClearPass also extended role-based access control with granular policies, replacing multiple authentication servers that presented configuration challenges to the detriment of security Aruba was selected to create a better-connected and future-proof workplace providing connectivity, speed and — especially — security at scale for SPH’s employees.

“We are moving into the new digital future, not only through the way we deliver the news but through constant innovation to build the workplace of the future”, said Glen Francis, Chief Technology Officer at SPH.

“The pandemic accelerated the agenda to strengthen our technological foundations, so we can improve work quality and streamline processes with an enhanced network infrastructure. Mobility and agility will be key driving forces in the evolving ‘anywhere’ office,” he added.

Meanwhile, Walt Disney World Resort, also known as the “happiest place on Earth”, has already deployed Aruba Wi-Fi infrastructure and IoT solutions at five of its resorts, with plans to add to its remaining 24 hotels by 2021.

Seoul Dragon City, a large-scale hotel-plex, also partnered with Aruba for networking solutions. Young Sok Choi, IT Director of Seoul Dragon City, explained that Aruba CX switches deliver extra security and speed, and its solutions help fulfill the hotel’s current needs and plans.

“As South Korea’s largest hotel, we needed a reliable network solution to support a number of mobile devices and users. We also needed to build a network infrastructure to support customer service through loT and cloud. Aruba state-of-the-art network provides reliable, fast networking to deliver seamless connectivity to our employees and customers visiting Seoul Dragon City,” Young said.

Aruba Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 5 access points (APs) are ideal for both midsize and large enterprises. They are certified to deliver secure and reliable connectivity to mobile users, IoT devices, and latency-sensitive applications – even in crowded areas.

Its technology is guaranteed to deliver complete feature availability and device interoperability with customers gaining unmatched technical capabilities engineered for the most demanding environments.

Furthermore, Aruba CX switches utilize a cloud-native design to provide the performance, scale, and intelligence needed by modern enterprise networks. A distributed, non-blocking architecture delivers the performance and reliability required to meet growing network demands that end-users expect.

The unique benefits of Aruba ESP across wired, wireless, SD-WAN and remote work environments help simplify IT operations and deliver the performance and security needed today. To experience Aruba Central the best way possible and discover the difference a unified infrastructure can make for your business, please visit Aruba ESP.

The post Future-proof your network infrastructure with Aruba in a digital-first, hybrid-working era appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The global Covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly pushed most of the world to digitalize their work and personal habits. This has resulted in a surge of demand and adoption of online services, be it in the consumption of entertainment or products, as well as within the workplace.

The survey, titled ‘IBM Consumer Survey: Security Side Effects of the Pandemic, was carried out by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM Security. It polled 22,000 individuals around the world on their online security habits, and the results are rather concerning. 

Cybersecurity awareness trends

The findings show that across all categories polled, respondents in the Asia Pacific (APAC) fare a little worse than the global average on personal cybersecurity and data privacy habits. It was found that an average of 17 (global: 15) new online accounts were created for each respondent from APAC. 39% (global: 44%) have indicated that they do not plan to delete or deactivate any new accounts even if the pandemic is over.

Despite the risk of potentially insecure apps/websites, 54% (global: 44%) of APAC respondents would still proceed with ordering and paying for digital orders as opposed to purchasing at a physical location. Worryingly, 86% (global: 82%) of respondents admit that they re-use the same credentials across multiple online accounts. 69% (global: 63%) of respondents also accessed COVID-related services via digital channels, such as mobile apps, websites, email, and text messages. 

The survey found that consumers want faster and more convenient digital interactions, and most prefer to spend less than five minutes creating a new account. Furthermore, it was found that users on average would make around three password attempts before resetting their login details, which can be costly for companies. 

For APAC users, 47% memorize their login credentials, whereas 34% write them on paper, increasing security risks. Organizations can use this knowledge to suggest that users utilize a password manager app to ease logins. These are some of the aspects organizations can consider when designing systems for data collection or logins whilst focusing on security.

Cybersecurity awareness not just a consumer effort

IBM Security suggests four key approaches that businesses can consider:

1. Adopting a ‘ZeroTrust’ security approach

Speaking to Tech Wire Asia, Managing Director of IBM Malaysia Catherine Lian noted that one of the biggest takeaways here is that companies can no longer rely on passwords as a primary method to establish “trust” with users. As such, a ‘zero-trust’ security approach would fare better, as it assumes that an authenticated identity, or the network itself, may already be compromised (even if they aren’t). 

This translates into having a ‘security-first perspective’ when it comes to handling every user, device, and interaction. By unifying security data and approaches, the use of technology like AI will continuously validate conditions for connections between users, data, and resources which can help spot the differences between legitimate users and potential cybercriminals. 

2. Modernizing Consumer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)

A modernized CIAM strategy can efficiently and effectively help companies increase digital engagement. This can provide behavioral user analytics, plus users will experience a more seamless experience across multiple digital platforms. It can also cut down on fake profiles/accounts created by detecting them using perhaps artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) technologies.

3. Enhancing Data Protection & Privacy

The increase in users translates into higher amounts of sensitive data. Companies should ensure that they have strong data security features (both local and cloud) to prevent unauthorized access from data monitoring to detecting suspicious activity. 

Strong data encryption is highly critical for all organizations and companies, big or small. Additionally, companies should implement ethical and appropriate data privacy policies in order to build and maintain consumer trust.

4. Increasing security testing

Businesses can re-evaluate the effectiveness of incident response plans, and testing applications for security vulnerabilities, both of which are important components of this process. Investing in dedicated testing with more modern approaches such as breach and attack simulations (BAS) instead of penetration testing is also viable.

What does this mean for businesses?

In the pursuit of digital convenience, cybersecurity awareness and data privacy have taken a backseat for many participants.

WHY IBM COULD BE ON-PATH TO A CLOUD SECURITY BREAKTHROUGH

Mark Jones | 18 December, 2020

“It’s important to remember that these poor security habits amongst consumers will also likely transfer to the workplace and employees – therefore putting the right controls and analytics in place to ensure only the right people have access to the specific data needed for their job, for a specific and limited duration of time”, said Lian. 

She suggested that organizations consider offsetting password reliance with options for alternate forms of authentication such as biometrics and authenticator apps – which can help add an additional level of security, without compromising the user experience. 

This wouldn’t be too difficult to implement since the survey found that over two-thirds of APAC users are aware of and use multi-factor authentication, which can greatly help the user should their account be compromised.

The lowered awareness of cybersecurity and data privacy by users suggest that businesses that reach their customers digitally will have to reconsider their cybersecurity efforts and take these into account when strategizing and assessing their cybersecurity risk profiles.

The post Consumer cybersecurity awareness still low, businesses should step up – IBM Security appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.