Malaysian Bank Working on Crypto-Friendly SuperApp

Malaysia’s largest private investment bank, Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad, has partnered with technology giant Ant Group in order to launch a “SuperApp” that includes crypto trading, the company said in a press release on 24 August.

According to the announcement, Kenanga has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ant Group — an affiliate of Alibaba, and developer of Alipay — to jointly develop Malaysa’s first “Wealth SuperApp”. According to the agreement, Ant Group’s technology unit will provide the bank with mPaaS, its mobile development platform used by “many businesses” to build their own applications. The managing director of Kenanga, Datuk Chay Wai Leong, said in a statement:

“We look forward to not only unifying a broad spectrum of financial offerings under one roof, but more importantly, to make wealth creation more accessible by democratising financial services for the millions of Malaysians around the country who want better, swifter and cheaper access to financial products and solutions.”

Kenanga — one of the largest banks in Malaysia with over 500,000 customers — intends to “revolutionise how Malaysians approach wealth generation” by integrating a diverse range of financial services into the upcoming app. With a launch plan of early 2023, the app will offer services such as crypto trading, digital wallet, digital investment management, foreign currency exchange, stock trading, and more.

This is not the first time the bank has interacted with the crypto industry, with Kenanga investing in licensed crypto exchange operator Tokenize Technology back in February 2021. Malaysia has seen some development when it comes to its crypto industry, with local officials calling for the legalization of digital assets in the country, and though crypto investment and trading has been legalized, the government has opposed the idea of adopting digital assets as legal tender.