As Southeast Asian merchants, startups and consumers increasingly adopt mobile payment systems, banking executives need to evaluate and integrate mobile solutions or risk being left behind, says a recent report published by Forrester Research. Furthermore, the report says if banks do not move quickly, they risk becoming irrelevant, surrendering customer relationships and missing out on key consumer data.

Fintech is one of the darlings of the startup world right now. VCs and investors are tripping over themselves to back startups with new and innovative ideas in the financial technology space.

If you take a look at all the news about fintech startups, you might get a feeling that the new financial services are built for retail clients and not for businesses. However, these are the entrepreneurs who may become drivers of fintech, especially in Asia. First, SMEs (small-medium enterprises), retail and overall entrepreneurship culture are highly developed in Southeast Asia. Second, we should clarify what exactly do we mean by ‘SME’. I believe the target audience for SMEs can be split in three segments that are most receptive to new technologies and demonstrate the highest customer involvement at the same time.

THE startup ecosystem in South-East Asia has certainly moved on to the next level in the two years IMJ Investment Partners (IMJ) has been in the region, in terms of both valuations and activity. “When I first visited Jakarta, Tokopedia’s valuation was at US$10 million – now it’s at US$300 million,” IMJ chief executive officer Yuji Horiguchi tells Digital News Asia (DNA). “This shows that South-East Asian startups have been growing at a really fast pace,” he says in an interview at his office, with IMJ’s South-East Asia regional manager Ryusuke Hirota assisting with the translation.