Plus, Didi makes electric vehicle push and TheBank.vn raises fresh funding

Singapore ride-hailing drivers may soon need licenses — [Land Transport Authority]

The Singapore government wants Grab and Go-Jek drivers to be licensed under a separate entity than traditional taxis, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has proposed.

The proposal would split taxis into a street-hail license while ride hailing drivers would be under a Ride-Hail Service Operator Licence. Theoretically, it would allow the LTA to be more nimble in updating licensing rules for companies like Grab and Go-Jek.

Part of the motivation for the move may have something to do with rider safety. A couple of weeks ago, Yoolim Lee of Bloomberg published a long essay describing the time she almost died in a Grab-ride accident. It drew a lot of attention to the fact that there is not a ton of oversight over who can become a Grab or Go-Jek driver.

On the flip side, forcing people to get licenses may reduce the supply of drivers and make it more challenging for users to book a ride.

Vietnamese fintech nabs funding from CyberAgent Capital — [e27]

TheBank.vn, the Vietnam-based fintech from SAMO company, has announced the completion its first round of funding from CyberAgent Capital and Ncore. The amount of the investment is undisclosed.

With this investment capital, TheBank.vn plans to improve customer experiences. This means launching registration forms for each loan service, improving the card opening process, helping people with insurance and selecting of financial products closest to their current needs. The company also seeks to improve the system to become a full stack solution provider of bid data, eKYC, chatbots, and credit scoring.

Didi Chuxing continues electric vehicle push — [TechCrunch]

Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing giant, has partnered with BAIC, a state-owned car maker, to pursue electric vehicles in China, according to TechCrunch.

The deal is meant to develop a “next generation” fleet of vehicles, but it was a vague announcement so further details are pending.

Both companies have placed a lot of priority on becoming environmentally friendly so the partnership makes sense.

GCash and Qwikwire partner to innovate real estate industry payment process — [e27]

Philippine-based mobile wallet GCash has announced that it has signed a deal with Qwikwire, a Philippines’ cross-border payments platform to innovate the local real estate payments transaction process.

In the Philippines, there has been a boom in the real estate industry over the last 5 years, but the problem is that people still pay their real estate dues through the traditional Post-dated checks (PDCs), Bank Deposits and over the counter payments directly to property developers or to their brokers.

The time-consuming methods also impose risks of fraud because of the lack of security in the payment.

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