Malaysia's largest investment bank cooperates with Ant Group to launch "SuperApp"

Kenanga, Malaysia's largest investment bank, partnered with Ant Group to launch "SuperApp", which includes crypto trading and portfolio management.

Scheduled to launch in 2023, “SuperApp” is Malaysia’s first crypto-friendly super app, providing a suite of financial solutions, including stock trading, digital investment management, exchange. foreign currency and cryptocurrency trading, according to a statement published last night. 

Datuk Chay Wai Leong, CEO of Kenanga, said:

“After spending a whole year conceptualizing and designing the SuperApp, we are delighted to partner with Ant Group, a experienced global infrastructure provider, to develop and bring this platform to life. With nearly 50 years of experience in the retail industry, serving over half a million customers, we believe the Kenanga Wealth SuperApp will be a giant leap forward, taking us to the next level.”  

Ant Group is the group technology behind Alipay, China's largest digital payment platform currently. As part of the partnership, the investment bank will leverage Ant Group's mPaaS mobile platform for its application. 

Kenanga was founded in 1973, with over 500,000 customers and started its digital journey 5 years ago. They recently teamed up with Tokyo-based e-commerce company Rakuten to launch Rakuten Trade, a rapidly growing stock trading app. Kenanga launched its robo-advisor, accumulating over $55 million in assets under management within 6 months.

Malaysia is also one of the countries that has continuously moved towards crypto since the beginning of the year. Despite claiming not to accept Bitcoin as legal currency, Malaysian regulators have not restricted crypto trading or taken any apparent legal action to date. The country is still actively focusing on issuing CBDC – the national digital currency. Even the Securities Commission of Malaysia (SC) actively supports the licensing of crypto exchanges operating in the country. But it was also SC who blew the whistle on Binance for illegal activity in July and put Huobi on the investor alert list yesterday. 

Crypto Fox News summary

Aug 25, 2022