Daily Briefing: Crypto firm Sygnum eyes banking license; Chinese firm to buy AVIC Maritime for $31.58m

And cross-border payments platform TranSwap has obtained a license from Bank of Indonesia.

From DealStreetAsia:

Catalist-listed AVIC International Maritime Holdings is being acquired by China Merchants Industry Investment, a subsidiary of China Merchants Industry Holdings, for $31.58m (US$22.75m), per China Merchants Industry Investment’s filing.

The Chinese investment company plans to take over a 73.87% stake of AVIC. The pre-conditional voluntary cash offer comes at a price of $0.15 per share ($0.11 per share).

The pre-conditional offer is subject to AVIC’s controlling shareholder, AIHL, passing all the necessary resolutions required from their shareholders to approve the sale at a general meeting. United Overseas Bank (UOB) is the sole financial adviser to the offer.

AVIC has been listed in Singapore since September 2011, and its listing status was transferred from the Mainboard to the Catalist Board in May 2016. AVIC specialises in providing shipbuilding project management and consultancy, design and engineering, shipbuilding, and ship-trading.

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From Bloomberg:

Crypto-company Sygnum, which is based in both Switzerland and Singapore, plans to apply for a banking license in the island nation.

The firm, which is one of the first crypto companies to obtain a conditional banking and securities dealer license from Swiss regulators, shared that it has started talking with regulators and has petitioned for a capital markets services license.

If approved, the firm will be able to offer asset-management business as a first step into financial services, co-founders Mathias Imbach and Gerald Goh said in a phone interview to Bloomberg.

“In order for us to provide a full suite of services, we need to operate as a bank” in Singapore, said Goh, who is also chief strategy officer. After the company becomes a full bank in Switzerland, a transition expected this year, it will be able to apply for a traditional banking license in Singapore, he added.

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From e27:

Singapore-based cross-border payments platform TranSwap today announced that it has obtained its money remittance fund transfer operator license from Bank Indonesia.

The license from Indonesia’s central bank will enable TranSwap to provide services for outbound cross-border payments in its third Asian location, after Singapore and Hong Kong.

TranSwap now plans to expand into the Indoesian market and launch inter-country fund transfers for businesses, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and e-commerce companies, within the next month.

SMEs and e-commerce businesses will be able to settle international payments by tapping on TranSwap’s solution. They will be able to manage and execute forex payments to more than 160 countries.

Read more here.