Daily Briefing: Zero or single-digit cases needed to lift ‘circuit breaker'; hospitality association co-launches hotel benchmarking tools

And financial comparison startup GoBear buys fintech startup AsiaKredit.

From Channel News Asia:

For Singapore to lift COVID-19 "circuit breaker" measures, the number of community cases daily should fall to zero or single digits over a sustained period of time, said health minister Gan Kim Yong in Parliament on 4 May.

This is one of three factors being considered when deciding on how to open up again and emerge from strict measures put in place.

"Numbers are important. We need to be assured that community transmission locally is stemmed, or very low," said Gan in his ministerial statement.

There also needs to be a fall in the number of migrant worker cases, Mr Gan added, noting that this will take "a while longer." The vast majority of Singapore's COVID-19 cases are work permit holders living in dormitories.

Read more here.

From TTG Asia:

The Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) has partnered with hospitality analytics company STR to offer benchmarking tools for Singapore’s hotels, based on data collected and analysed by STR.

The tools will allow hotels to track advancements in their performance and benchmark it against that of competitors, explained Margaret Heng, executive director, SHA, in a press statement.

Bernard Kee, regional manager for South-east Asia, STR, said in the statement that the partnership will allow SHA members to benefit from “single-point data collection” and a “unified voice for hotel performance” across the country.

STR was founded in 1985, providing data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights for global hospitality sectors, according to its website. The company was acquired in October 2019 as a division of NASDAQ-listed commercial property analytics firm CoStar Group.

Read more here.

From e27:

GoBear, a financial products comparison startup based in Singapore, has acquired AsiaKredit, a consumer lending platform operating in the Philippines, according to a press release. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

With this acquisition, GoBear will expand its reach within the Philippines and further drive expansion of its services beyond insurance and credit cards to digital lending.

Additionally, the deal will allow it to introduce lending as a service to its network of more than 100 partners in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. It will also see the expansion of a direct consumer lending service through pera247, AsiaKredit’s flagship mobile app.

Read more here.