Daily Briefing: Debt and reserves eyed to fund $100b climate change push; Chinatown conservation shophouse for sale at $8.5m

And insurtech firm Singapore Life joins Railsbank’s $13.87m funding round.

From Channel News Asia:

The Government could fund the $100b cost of climate change protection measures using a combination of borrowing, reserves and ministry budgets, Second Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong told Parliament on Tuesday.

This comes after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced in his National Day Rally speech on Aug 18 that Singapore would probably need to spend $100b over 100 years to tackle climate change and rising sea levels.

Measures include building an additional pump house at Marina Barrage, creating polders and reclaiming offshore islands on the eastern coast of Singapore.

"We will need a combination of funding methods to finance the various climate change adaptation measures," Mr Wong said.

"Smaller-scale infrastructure such as localised flood barriers for public assets, such as hospitals and bus depots, can be funded from the budgets of ministries,” he added.

Read more here.

From iCompareLoan:

A three-storey Chinatown conservation shophouse has been launched for sale via expression of interest at $8.5m, CBRE announced.

The property sits on a land area of approximately 1,115 sqft with a 99-year leasehold tenure from 1991, and has an estimated gross floor area of 3,196 sqft. It is zoned for commercial use under the 2014 Master Plan.

The indicative price of $8.5m works out to $2,660 per square foot (psf) based on the gross floor area.

Furthermore, it is located less than 300 meters from the Chinatown MRT interchange station, and is 150 meters away from the Maxwell MRT station scheduled to be operational in 2021.

The expression of interest exercise will close at 3 PM on 2 October.

Read more here.

From DealStreetAsia:

Singapore Life, a Singapore-based insurtech company, has invested in Railsbank, a London-based regtech and open banking platform, an announcement revealed. The investment sum was not disclosed.

According to a statement, Singapore Life participated in Railsbank’s $13.87m (US$10m) Series A round, led by Moneta Capital. Other investors include CreditEase, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Firestartr, and other existing backers.

Railsbank is an API-based financial platform designed for developers and product managers to build a financial services business from concept to launch and scale swiftly and seamlessly.

The statement added that the fresh capital will be used to expand its capabilities globally into markets like the US, Australia, and Southeast Asia, and will also invest in its core products across banking, payments, cards, and APIs for other financial services in insurance and credit.

Railsbank is also setting up a Singapore office as part of this expansion, which will act as a gateway into the region.

Read more here.