EPAA signs MOU to promote financial marketplace platform

It enables financial institutions and fintechs to interact and collaborate at a lower cost.

The Emerging Payments Association Asia (EPAA) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN) to promote the APIX platform as part of its open banking initiative, according to an announcement by EPAA.

AFIN’s flagship product APIX is a cloud-based platform that reportedly enables financial institutions and fintechs to interact and collaborate within a single global marketplace at a lower cost.

The MOU is part of EPAA’s advocacy for open banking, Project Open Banking Asia, a 51-country initiative that is researching API adoption, regulatory guidelines, the fintech ecosystem and innovation in these spaces. EPAA said that it plans to help formulate policies and standards for the Asian payments sector.

The association plans to produce a policy paper that explores the state of open banking and outlines open banking best practice recommendations. It will reportedly be presented to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) finance ministers at the Asia Pacific Financial Forum (APFF) in February 2020.

EPAA is an independent chapter of the UK-based Emerging Payments Association (EPA), which launched in 2004 and has more than 180 members around the world.

“In Asia’s emerging economies, payments are growing by 32% every year. Today one out of every three e-wallet transactions made across the globe occur in China alone, and Asia has more unbanked citizens than anywhere else in the world. In all, the global payments market is estimated to be worth US$2t by 2025,” the press release noted.