HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 9 May 2024 – eft Payments (Asia) Limited (“eftPay”), one of the leading e-Payment services providers in Hong Kong, participates in Retail Asia Expo 2024, a grand retail industry event in APAC region. Kicking off on May 8, the Expo takes place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center for three consecutive days. At its booth (location: Hall 1B, E11), eftPay demonstrates the Company’s latest services in e-payments and smart mobility, showcasing how it helps industry players seize market opportunities.
Since the beginning of the “New Retail Era,”the demand for local electronic payment and overseas wallet use has increased rapidly. Apart from the retail market, eftPay is committed to creating more business scenarios for the application of e-payments, including “Micro Market”, “B2B2C (Business-to-Consumer-to-Merchant)”, “Co-working Space” etc.
eftPay also actively connects to different oversea wallets and payment platforms to provide merchants with a variety of foreign currency payment functions and satisfy the needs of travellers, like “JKOPay” from Taiwan and “GLN” from South Korea, making it one of the e-Payment service providers in Hong Kong with the largest number of oversea wallets with support to multiple Southeast Asian wallets.
The Company strives to help Hong Kong transform into a smart city. For example, assisting with the introduction of e-payment services for “CabCab,”the smart taxi meter earlier, including QR code, credit cards, contactless NFC payments, and other related mainstream payment methods and access to overseas wallets, allowing citizens to experience the benefits of “smart mobility.”
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
eft Payments (Asia) Limited
Established in 2013, eftPay is one of the leading e-Payment services providers in Hong Kong, providing merchants with comprehensive e-Payment services, including account opening, point of sale system and integration of payment system, transaction processing and payment settlement services. Currently, eftPay serves at least 22,600 stores in Hong Kong, including well-known local jewelry chains, electrical appliances stores, makeup and beauty stores, clothing stores, food and beverage, theme parks, convenience stores and supermarkets. Website: http://www.eftpay.com.hk/
FILE: Phou Khao Khouay National Park (photo: A journey of thousands steps)
In a move to combat climate change, the Lao government, in partnership with AIDC Green Forest, is launching a forest carbon credit initiative (REDD+) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from forest destruction and degradation.
As per the initial announcement by the Water Supply State Enterprise Luang Prabang, the Namkhan water factory in Phanom village will undergo a temporary shutdown lasting from 6 May to 9 June. This closure is attributed to the installation of water pumping systems and other equipment. The announcement also advised local residents, particularly those residing in Luang Prabang City, to brace themselves for potential water shortages, including irregular water supply patterns, diminished water pressure, and the possibility of complete cutoffs.
FILE: EDL staff fixing a battery on an electric poll (photo: Pathet Lao Daily)
Electricite Du Laos (EDL) has responded to the growing criticism for their delayed actions in addressing the frequent power outages due to high electricity demand seeking public patience and sympathy.
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 9 May 2024 – In recent years, the beauty industry has undergone a profound transformation, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, by integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. According to a report by Statista, the Asia-Pacific cosmetics market is poised to exceed US$200 billion by 2025, propelled by technological advancements and evolving consumer preferences.
Leading the charge in this AI-driven revolution is Appier, a pioneering AI-driven platform, along with innovative beauty brands across the Asia Pacific region. These brands are embracing AI innovations such as virtual reality (VR) and leveraging AI for facial fusion, skin and hair analysis, and augmented reality (AR) virtual try-ons. This tech-savvy approach extends beyond product development, transforming marketing strategies to engage consumers in personalized and immersive ways.
With Mother’s Day just around the corner, beauty brands are stepping up their game with AI-driven marketing strategies
As the highly competitive Mother’s Day sales of 2024 approach, businesses in the Asia Pacific region have a golden opportunity to leverage AI to craft impactful marketing campaigns. With the region’s vast and diverse consumer base, Generative AI (GenAI) presents an unparalleled advantage for beauty brands aiming to captivate their audience and maximize sales during this crucial period.
Crafting the Perfect Message: GenAI Native Ads Generator
In native advertising, crafting compelling and contextually relevant ad copies is paramount. Enter the GenAI Native Ads Generator – a revolutionary tool to streamline ad creation. Marketers can effortlessly generate numerous ad copies tailored to different audience segments by inputting desired content highlights and selecting the preferred tone. This enhances efficiency and ensures ads resonate with target demographics across various platforms.
Seizing the Right Moment: AI-driven Contextual Prediction
Once captivating ad content is created, the next crucial step is ensuring it reaches the right audience at the perfect moment. This is where AI-driven Contextual Prediction steps in, analyzing real-time website content to align ad placement with each platform’s unique style and tone. By delivering ads in context, this approach increases native ad impressions and optimizes ad expenditure, particularly on platforms relevant to Mother’s Day shopping.
Understanding consumer behavior is pivotal for effective audience targeting. A GenAI interest topic expansion tool empowers brands to identify and reach potential customers precisely. By expanding interest topics related to Mother’s Day, brands can tap into lucrative audience segments such as gift-givers and self-gifters, optimizing ad budgets and driving higher ad performance.
Unlocking Business Opportunities with AI
The applications of GenAI in Mother’s Day marketing campaigns present unprecedented opportunities for beauty brands to connect with consumers on a deeper level. By harnessing AI-driven insights and tools, brands can elevate their marketing strategies, maximize sales, and stay ahead of the competition.
In conclusion, integrating AI technologies, particularly GenAI, marks a paradigm shift in how beauty brands approach marketing strategies, especially during critical periods like Mother’s Day. With the ability to craft targeted content and deliver it at the right moment to the right audience, brands can forge stronger connections with consumers and drive significant business outcomes.
As we navigate the evolving digital marketing landscape, it’s clear that AI-driven solutions offer unparalleled advantages in optimizing ad performance and maximizing return on investment. Beauty brands can stay relevant and thrive in an increasingly competitive market by embracing these innovations.
In essence, the future of marketing lies in the intelligent application of technology, and GenAI represents the vanguard of this revolution. As we look ahead to future campaigns and endeavors, let us continue to harness the power of AI to unlock new possibilities and shape the beauty industry’s future. Hashtag: #Appier
BANGKOK, THAILAND – Media OutReach Newswire – 9 May 2024 – Money20/20, the world’s leading fintech show and the place where money does business, concluded three industry-changing days of fintech conversations, networking and impactful industry nights on April 23rd- 25th at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center (QSNCC) in Bangkok, Thailand.
Source: Money 20/20
The show welcomed more than 3000 attendees and more than 200 journalists. The attendees traveled from 87 countries including 24 countries in APAC. Over 250 industry leading speakers from all across Asia shared four incredible stages. 45% of those speaking were female executives and fintech leaders and over 60% of all speakers were at C-suite level.
“Money20/20 Asia is where the world’s fintech leaders convene to grow their businesses. Seeing movers and shakers from banks, payments companies, VC firms, start ups, regulators and media platforms coming together at our show in Bangkok was hugely exciting. The conversations, deals and global announcements we witnessed at the show demonstrated just how important Asia is to our industry as a driver of global growth and I can’t wait to see what this incredible ecosystem will help us build in Bangkok in 2025”, said Tracey Davies, Global President of Money20/20.
AI, cross-border payments, open banking, digital assets, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and financial inclusion were hot topics on the stages. KASIKORNBANK, one of the largest commercial banks in Thailand, announced an instrumental partnership with J.P. Morgan at Money20/20 Asia’s press lunch held on April 23rd. The joint initiative Project Carina leverages decentralized blockchain and Web3 technologies to transform cross-border payments that significantly reduce processing time from 72 hours to just five minutes.
Key regulators of APAC also held a central role in the discussions on our stages. 20 of our 189 sessions included Asia regulators or included fintechs and financial institutions addressing the latest trends and the impact of regulatory tech.
In a session led by Dr. Wong of SC Malaysia, Malaysia’s fintech journey in the capital markets was explored. The focus was on fostering innovation while ensuring investor protection.
“Malaysia is open for business. Our fourteen principles are the highlight of our approach to innovation in Malaysia. Right from its inception, we’ve embraced a collaborative ethos, recognising the power of synergy between citizens, the state, and industry players. Our commitment extends beyond mere technological advancement; it’s about leveraging technology to fulfill our purpose, whether it’s democratizing access to finance or advancing societal goals”, said Dr. Wong.
Security, mobile identity and fraud prevention in the age of AI couldn’t be more important and was discussed in several sessions throughout the show.
The Founder and CEO of SHIELD Justin Lie emphasized the importance of the trust element and multilateral collaboration in tackling fraud in the digital age in the session Trust Tech, Empower Lives: Redefining Financial Inclusion in the AI Age. SHIELD also hosted the Trust Summit together with Money20/20 Asia sharing the common goal of fraud prevention.
“While we’ve been engaged in combating fraud for over 15 years, each day revealing the potency of trust as a vital component, it took us this long to recognize that our mission extends beyond mere fraud prevention. For B2B enterprises, we serve as catalysts, uniting industry leaders under a shared objective of combating fraud. This realization prompted the inception of the Trust Summit”, said Justin Lie.
After a successful first year in Bangkok, Money20/20 has confirmed that the show will return to the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in April 2025. To register your interest for Money 20/20 Asia 2025, please visit https://asia.money2020.com/#asia-2025-register-your-interest.
Hashtag: #Money2020
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About Money20/20
Launched by industry insiders in 2012, Money20/20 has rapidly become the heartbeat of the global fintech ecosystem. Over the last decade, the most innovative, fast-moving ideas and companies have driven their growth on our platform. Mastercard, Airwallex, J.P. Morgan, SHIELD, GCash, Stripe, Google, VISA, Adyen and more make transformational deals and raise their global profile with us. Money20/20 attracts leaders from the world’s greatest banks, payments companies, VC firms, start ups, regulators and media platforms: convening to cut industry-shaping deals, build world-changing partnerships and unlock future-defining opportunities. in Bangkok (23-25 April 2024), Amsterdam (4-6 June 2024) and Las Vegas (27-30 October 2024). Money20/20 also recently launched Twentyfold, a Digital Intelligence product containing the deepest and widest repository of fintech startup data in the world. Money20/20 is where the world’s fintech leaders convene to grow their businesses. Money20/20 is part of Ascential plc. Follow Money20/20 on X and LinkedIn for show developments and updates. We’re Where Money Does Business.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 9 May 2024 – Today, IX Asia Indexes (“IXAI”) announced the launch of ixCrypto BTC/ETH 50/50 Index (“ixCrypto 50/50”) and ixCrypto BTC/ETH Proportional Index (“ixCrypto Proportional”).
The two indexes are designed for cryptocurrencies beginners for their first knowledge and first investment in cryptocurrencies. The ixCrypto 50/50 and ixCrypto Proportional are developed on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) only and should be more acceptable for retail investors due to their dominance in market capitalization and volume in the crypto market. Based on IXAI’s 2024 Q1 review result, Bitcoin together with Ethereum comprised 68.87% and 56.68% of total market capitalization and volume respectively. IXAI launches the new indexes that cater to not only investors’ demand, but also regulators’ direction, which prefer retail to invest solely in Bitcoin and Ethereum rather than a broader range of cryptocurrencies.
The two new indexes provide benchmarking value (to track the performance of Bitcoin and Ethereum) and facilitate ETF issuers and fund managers for the creation of index tracking funds. ixCrypto 50/50 Index is a two-constituent index with equal weight on ixCrypto Bitcoin Index (IXBI) and ixCrypto Ethereum Index (IXEI), while ixCrypto Proportional Index is a two-constituent index with weight according to the market capitalization of Bitcoin and Ethereum with respect to their aggregated total market capitalization at 74.97% and 25.03% respectively (Appendix 1). The two new indexes based on historical long-term returns outperformed the cryptocurrency market and BTC significantly due to their higher weighting on ETH, while also can achieve risk diversification (Appendix 2).
Appendix 1
Constituent Weightings of ixCrypto BTC/ETH 50/50 Index and Proportional Index
90-day-average Crypto Market Cap
90-day-average Crypto Volume
Index Level*
CumulativeMarket Cap Coverage
Weight in BTC/ETH 50/50
Weight in BTC/ETH Proportional
IXBI
$1,048,001,688,171
$34,255,641,195
16833.37
51.63%
50.00%
74.97%
IXEI
$349,874,454,279
$16,226,856,611
30077.54
68.87%
50.00%
25.03%
* On 31 March 2024
Correlation of IXBI and IXEI
1 – Month
3 – Month
6 – Month
1 – Year
3 – Year
5 – Year
Since Inception
YTD
Correlation
0.8892
0.8005
0.7663
0.7922
0.8248
0.7974
0.7954
0.8006
As of 31 March 2024
Appendix 2
Statistics Comparison of ixCrypto Index Series
Index
Performance
Standard Deviation
(Monthly Return)
Reward-to-Risk Ratio*
1 Year (%)
3 Years (%)
Since Inception (%)
1 Year (%)
3 Years (%)
Since Inception (%)
1 Year
3 Years
Since Inception
IXCI
119.43
35.77
1258.94
45.21
120.88
173.37
2.64
0.30
7.26
IXBI
148.18
18.28
1583.34
50.95
117.85
171.17
2.91
0.16
9.25
IXEI
95.17
89.64
2907.75
44.94
139.54
209.81
2.12
0.64
13.86
BTC/ETH 50/50
111.37
55.89
2245.55
46.43
126.25
178.19
2.40
0.44
12.60
BTC/ETH Proportional
123.71
27.20
1700.37
48.39
122.59
172.80
2.56
0.22
9.84
As of 31 March 2024 * Reward-to-Risk Ratio: Performance of Index Return / Standard Deviation of Index Return
Hashtag: #IXAsiaIndexes
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About IX Asia Indexes and IX Index Advisory Committee
IX Capital International Limited is an award-winning index and investment advisory company. The index business arm- IX Asia Indexes, providing real-time digital asset and innovative indexes, disseminated 24×7 globally and built on robust infrastructure. Since the launch of the first crypto benchmark index (“IXCI”) launched in Hong Kong in December 2018, the ixCrypto index series expand into 27 indexes designed for exchange futures product, mark to market and fund managers’ portfolio construction purposes. To ensure the professionality and impartiality of the index methodologies and operations, IX Asia Indexes has established its index advisory committee with representation from different industries, including fund management, exchanges, brokerage, financial blockchain experts, crypto service providers, etc. The committee will meet quarterly a year to discuss matters relating to the IX Asia Indexes, including to review and to comment the data sources, methodologies, and operations of IX Asia Indexes, to provide guidance to the future development of new IX Asia Indexes and to handle other issues and decisions on an as-needed basis.
IX Asia Indexes was awarded the Fintech Award (wealth investment and management) 2019 and 2021 organised by ETNet. It as well won an award for Startup of the Year and Basic Technology (Big Data) from Hong Kong Fintech Impetus Awards 2022 by Metro Broadcast and KPMG. It also won Asia Pacific Enterprise Achievement Award 2024 by Echolade. IX Asia Indexes completed its IOSCO compliance statement and obtained ISO/IEC 27001:2013 UKAS certification.
The ixCrypto index (“IXCI”) is the first crypto index launched in Hong Kong. It was launched on 12 December 2018. It is denominated in USD with a base value of 1000 and a base date on 3 December 2018. Designed to be easy to understand while providing a good representation of the crypto market, ixCrypto index aims to cover the top 80% of the cumulative free-float adjusted market capitalization in the crypto universe and, at the same time, the crypto currencies should fall within the top liquid cryptos ranked by trading volume in the 90 days preceding the review date. The index is to be reviewed quarterly and with a fast entry rule. Real time indexes are disseminated every 5-second for 24×7 since 23 June 2022. Real time index data together with ixBitcoin Index and ixEthereum Index can be obtained from IX Capital International Data Services. For IXCI, IXBI and IXEI, the indexes are also available through Nasdaq Global Index Data Service (GIDS) with the tickers “IXCI”, “IXBI” and “IXEI”, with dissemination interval kept at 15-second unchanged.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 9 May 2024 – Colt Technology Services, the digital infrastructure company, has been named “Best Information Vendor (Platinum)” by China Investment Information Services (CIIS) Limited, at CIIS’s Sixth Global Information Vendor Conference held in Hong Kong on 22 March 2024.
Wesley Elder, Product Director, Global Capital Markets, Colt Technology Services (second to right), receiving the Best Information Vendor Award (Platinum) at the CIIS Global Information Vendor Conference.
CIIS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), and is the overseas sole agent of SSE market data. With the award, Colt was recognised by CIIS for its active participation in exchange feed changes by providing valuable, prompt feedback, compliance, and licensing as a top real-time global data vendor that delivers all the components needed to connect to, and maintain, low latency market data – including managing performance, latency and bandwidth of data feeds.
Colt is a licensed market data vendor who offers direct and normalized market data feeds for equities, derivatives, commodities and foreign exchange (FX) from more than 50 exchanges and liquidity venues worldwide. Colt is also an official real time data vendor for a number of Chinese exchanges offered by CIIS which includes Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX) and Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange (ZCE). In addition, with CIIS’ extensive network and support, Colt was able to obtain real time data from other Chinese exchanges such as the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE), Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE), further enhancing its coverage in the Chinese capital market.
Wesley Elder, Product Director, Global Capital Markets, Colt Technology Services, said: “We’re grateful for this recognition by CIIS, as we strive to bring our capital market expertise to the world. The digital era has opened up more opportunities in market data licensing, and for capital markets participants. Colt will continue to expand our coverage in the region, and innovate towards delivering market data feeds at consistently low latencies, even during periods of volatility, enabling our customers to capture market opportunities in today’s increasingly fast-paced landscape.”
In March 2024, Colt was also named “Top Derivatives Data Vendor” (Global category) at the 2023 HKEX Awards held in Hong Kong. The award recognised Colt as one of HKEX’s top data vendors based on annualised derivatives data revenue generated from 3 January 2023 to 29 December 2023, highlighting Colt’s significant contribution in providing market data to capital markets participants and HKEX clients worldwide. Hashtag: #Colt
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About Colt Technology Services
Colt Technology Services (Colt) is a global digital infrastructure company which creates extraordinary connections to help businesses succeed. Powered by amazing people and like-minded partners, Colt is driven by its purpose: to put the power of the digital universe in the hands of its customers, wherever, whenever and however they choose.
Since 1992, Colt has set itself apart through its deep commitment to its customers, growing from its heritage in the City of London to a global business spanning 40+ countries, with over 6,000 employees and more than 80 offices around the world. Colt’s customers benefit from expansive digital infrastructure connecting 32,000 buildings across 230 cities, more than 50 Metropolitan Area Networks and 250+ Points of Presence across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and North America’s largest business hubs.
Privately owned, Colt is one of the most financially sound companies in the sector. Obsessed with delivering industry-leading customer experience, Colt is guided by its dedication to customer innovation, by its values and its responsibility to its customers, partners, people and the planet.