The digital bank is offering potential returns of 5% p.a., along with a guaranteed extra 1% p.a. bonus reward for the first 20,000 users on the waitlist, with no cap.

This brings the potential return to up to 6% p.a., subject to terms and conditions.

The Ryt Invest preview shows three investment options: SavePlus (Shariah), Income and Gold.

The campaign material lists returns of 5.00% p.a. for SavePlus, 15.97% p.a. for Income and 33.34% p.a. for Gold, with an extra 1.00% p.a. bonus shown for each option.

The returns shown are based on actual and simulated 2025 data, and are for illustration only.

The announcement marks the next step in Ryt Bank’s product rollout as it expands beyond payments, savings and short-term credit into investment services.

Ryt Bank has grown to 1.2 million users since its August 2025 launch.

The bank has processed more than 25 million transactions so far, with monthly transaction volumes rising more than 35 times since launch.

The bank had earlier indicated that it was preparing to launch Ryt Invest as a wealth product integrated into its app.

Ryt Bank currently offers features such as Ryt AI, bill payments, card payments and Ryt PayLater.

Its PayLater feature is available across DuitNow QR and Visa payment networks, with eligible users able to access up to RM1,499 in instant credit.

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Most, if not all, often treat each threat as a separate challenge that was divided across departments.

Something like when document forgery is sat with onboarding teams, while suspicious cross-border transfers fall under anti-money laundering units.

But such a siloed defence strategy does make sense, especially when attackers were largely opportunistic, and the threats themselves were as disconnected as the institutions.

In the year 2026, however, trends show that criminal syndicates in APAC treat fraud as more of an integrated business process, and they are often more coherent.

What it means is that the moment a synthetic identity bypasses a digital bank’s initial filters, it tends to trigger a deliberate chain of events designed to facilitate scams across multiple jurisdictions.

And detection in most cases comes only when the stolen funds have already begun moving across borders, which is mostly pointless at this stage, leaving institutions not enough time to do anything.

Thus, traditional checkpoint-based security models now struggle to keep pace with modern syndicates because their underlying architecture targeted those exact isolated vulnerabilities.

And such old systems lack the dynamic capacity required to track the continuous criminal supply chains driving today’s financial crime.

Like a Bomb, Fraud Can Also Cause a Chain Reaction

Sumsub’s latest regional analysis pointed out that the scale of that transformation, as now, biometric circumvention, particularly cases where a selfie fails to match submitted identification, accounts for 35.4% of all fraudulent activity across Asia-Pacific.

That figure marks a 73% year-on-year increase, underscoring how quickly legacy fraud controls are losing ground.

Much of that acceleration reflects a broader shift in attacker capability, as criminals move beyond crude document manipulation and increasingly rely on AI-generated imagery built to bypass verification systems designed for far simpler threats.

The same technological shift is also fuelling a surge in synthetic identities, which have grown 142% over the past year and now represent 15.7% of all recorded incidents.

Syndicates achieve this scale by meticulously blending stolen factual data with fabricated details, constructing hybrid personas designed to survive initial onboarding checks.

The operational danger typically surfaces weeks or months later, when these dormant accounts suddenly begin moving funds in ways that diverge sharply from their established profile.

Persistent probing has also slowly become a defining feature of how modern fraud operates.

Duplicate application submissions have surged by 388% globally, revealing how attackers increasingly treat failed attempts as diagnostic intelligence to reverse-engineer an institution’s verification logic.

Now, rather than the norm of retreating after rejection, criminals refine their methods and return repeatedly until they successfully exploit the vulnerability.

Fabrication Is Replacing Forgery, Discreetly and at Scale

The fundamental nature of digital deception has also completely transformed, abandoning the primitive theft or alteration of legitimate credentials.

Fraud in the not-so-olden days is oftentimes centred on themes of stealing or altering legitimate credentials. But modern fraud these days is different. It, for the moment, focuses increasingly on fabrication.

Criminals now try to overcome that by constructing synthetic identities from scratch, using deepfakes and staged interactions to mimic legitimate users with growing sophistication.

As a result, compliance teams just cannot rely solely on spotting obvious document tampering or visual inconsistencies.

Detection now depends on identifying subtle behavioural and biometric anomalies that are hidden within otherwise convincing applications.

Yet, successfully bypassing those digital checkpoints is rarely the final goal for these threat actors.

While artificial intelligence provides the technical entry point to slip past an institution’s automated defences, the resulting large-scale financial harm almost always hinges on targeted social engineering.

Syndicates ultimately wield these polished, digitally fabricated personas to systematically exploit human psychology, proving that trust remains the most lucrative and vulnerable target in the entire financial ecosystem.

In 2026, Fraud Shows Itself Most Clearly in the Trends People in APAC Recognise

Romance scams reflect this clearly as Sumsub reports that fraudulent actors account for 6.3% of all activity in the dating sector, often spending weeks or months building trust before introducing financial requests.

Recent data points to a 37% annual rise in stolen funds linked to romance scams, highlighting how emotional manipulation continues to scale alongside technological sophistication.

In Hong Kong, for instance, just within two weeks during November 2025, police recorded more than 40 romance scam cases with combined losses exceeding US$2.17 million (HK$17 million), many involving older victims targeted through highly personalised deception.

Operating at such a massive scale requires criminal syndicates to completely industrialise the art of deception.

Handlers rely heavily on meticulously scripted psychological manipulation, often reinforced by synthetic media, to manufacture intimacy on demand.

That very foundation of manufactured trust serves as the launchpad for infinitely more complex operations, most notably the ‘pig butchering’ syndicates that are also currently sweeping the region.

Multi-layered campaigns, like what Ponzi schemes usually do, merge intimate emotional grooming with fake trading portals, gradually steering targets into entirely fabricated financial ecosystems.

They routinely authorise small early and easy withdrawals and display consistent portfolio growth that blinds their victims into the illusion of legitimacy.

And the trap remains open, expertly maintained, until they drain all of the victim’s money.

But maintaining that level of personalised, daily deception across thousands of concurrent targets requires industrial-scale manpower. Authorities within the region have been tracking the resulting billion-dollar capital flight, continually tracing the digital footprint back to massive, highly structured compounds across Southeast Asia.

The grim reality behind the polished applications is an assembly line of deceit, operated almost entirely by trafficked individuals working under severe coercion.

Once the Money Moves, It Rarely Stays Still

Maximising extraction, however, is rarely where these operations end.

Once they successfully compromise their victims, these criminal networks then shift their focus toward moving and concealing stolen assets before meaningful intervention can occur.

At that stage, the distinction between fraud, scams, and money laundering becomes far less clear.

What may begin as identity manipulation or social engineering often evolves into a broader financial operation, where illicit proceeds are quietly channelled through layered systems designed to obscure their origin.

Sumsub’s report highlights how these once-distinct threats are increasingly bleeding into one another, forming a continuous chain rather than isolated criminal acts.

Mule networks play a central role in that process, helping syndicates push stolen funds rapidly beyond immediate recovery.

Funds are typically broken apart, shifted through overlapping accounts, and redirected across multiple jurisdictions in ways that make tracing considerably more difficult.

Viewed in isolation, unusual transfers or account behaviour may appear manageable. Yet when examined as part of a larger pattern, they reveal an increasingly sophisticated laundering infrastructure.

That complexity places enormous pressure on financial institutions, many of which only ever encounter one segment of a much broader criminal framework.

A payment processor may identify suspicious transfer activity, while the institution responsible for account creation may never see the wider fraud narrative unfolding around it.

Fragmented visibility creates precisely the type of institutional weakness that organised criminal systems increasingly rely upon.

Defending Against a System Requires Acting Like One

Criminal networks now operate with a level of coordination that has outpaced many traditional institutional defences.

Static checkpoints and siloed compliance functions are proving increasingly inadequate against fraud ecosystems that move fluidly across identity, payments, and laundering channels.

As synthetic identities grow more sophisticated and cross-border fund movement becomes faster, continuous monitoring and integrated fraud intelligence are becoming far more essential.

Explore the full scale of transformation and some of the trends in greater detail in Sumsub’s APAC Fraud 2026 report.

Download it here:

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Malaysia based on an image by coding3637 via Freepik.

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The negotiations will cover RHB Bank’s proposed disposal of up to 100% of its stake in RHB Insurance Berhad to Tokio Marine Asia.

The proposed transaction would also see Tokio Marine Insurans (Malaysia) Berhad and RHB Insurance integrated into a larger combined entity, where RHB Bank would hold up to 35%.

RHB Investment Bank Berhad announced the development on behalf of RHB Bank’s Board of Directors after BNM issued its no-objection letter dated 11 May 2026.

The approval is subject to all parties completing the negotiations within six months from the date of BNM’s letter.

The relevant parties will still need prior approval from the Minister of Finance, with BNM’s recommendation, before entering into any definitive agreements under the Financial Services Act 2013.

RHB said it will make a detailed announcement once the definitive agreements for the proposed deal are signed.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Malaysia, based on image by RHB via Google Play

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The in-app platform connects SSM-registered businesses, including sole proprietors, to financing through a fully digital application process within TNG eWallet.

BizCash is aimed at micro and small businesses that may face challenges securing formal financing due to lower turnover, simpler business structures or limited documentation.

Eligible merchants must have at least RM4,200 in monthly revenue and a minimum of one year in operation.

They can apply for financing from RM10,000 to RM150,000 through the app, without branch visits or manual paperwork.

The financing is supported by CIMB’s SME Quick Biz Financing and is intended for working capital needs and business expansion.

TNG Digital designed BizCash for small businesses such as neighbourhood retailers, traders and service providers.

Returning merchants will have selected details auto-filled to make repeat applications easier.

Alan Ni, CEO of TNG Digital, said,

“Many of our merchants are sole proprietors who rely on steady cash flow to sustain and grow their businesses, yet remain underserved by traditional financing. Improving access to formal financial tools for these everyday entrepreneurs is a core priority for us.

With BizCash, we are building a platform that connects merchants to financing partners, starting with CIMB, to deliver faster and more accessible funding while supporting their long-term growth.”

Lawrence Loh, Co-CEO, Group Commercial and Transaction Banking at CIMB, said,

“Our collaboration with TNG Digital on BizCash reflects CIMB’s continued focus on leveraging digital partnerships to expand access to financing for micro and small businesses, in line with our purpose of Advancing Customers and Society.

By powering this solution with our SME lending capabilities, we are able to reach entrepreneurs through a platform they already use in their daily operations, making financing more accessible, convenient and timely.”

TNG Digital describes BizCash as an open financing platform, with more banking and financing partners to be added over time.

BizCash is part of GOfinance, TNG eWallet’s financial services hub, which also includes payments, investment and protection services.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Malaysia, based on image by musmanofficial00 via Magnific

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For much of the past decade, the industry’s attention has sat mostly on the customer-facing layer, as consumers grew more comfortable managing money through digital channels and financial institutions raced to make everyday transactions feel faster and less visible.

That front-end progress is now placing heavier demands on the systems underneath it.

As digital finance becomes more deeply woven into daily life, the infrastructure behind transactions, account balances, reconciliations, fraud checks and customer activity has to do more than process data quickly.

It has to remain stable during traffic spikes, meet rising compliance expectations, control long-term costs and adapt across markets where regulation, cloud preferences and customer behaviour can vary widely.

OceanBase CEO Evan Yang sees that pressure building across Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, where digital payments have moved from early adoption into mass usage.

“Digitalisation has become fully widespread, and digital payments have become a basic necessity,” he said.

That shift is pushing banks and fintech companies to revisit infrastructure choices that once seemed sufficient.

Systems built for a slower financial environment are now being tested by higher transaction volumes, hybrid cloud strategies, stricter regulatory expectations and the growing need to make data available for real-time decision-making and AI tasks.

Evan sees the shift as a change in how financial institutions should think about their core systems.

He believes that database infrastructure is becoming part of the strategic foundation, because the same system that stores and processes data is now expected to keep pace with heavier transaction loads, recover from disruption, satisfy local regulatory demands, support expansion across markets, and seamlessly integrate with the AI era.

OceanBase’s Global Push Has Moved Closer to the Ground

Cloud Flexibility Is Becoming a Practical Requirement

Database Infrastructure Is Becoming a Business Decision

The same pressure is pushing database infrastructure closer to business strategy.

Evan said fintechs and banks need stronger foundations that can keep services available as usage grows, while avoiding the cost and complexity that often come with older technology stacks.

Companies are also looking for “a single technology stack” that can handle transaction processing, analytical processing and AI.

That matters because data now carries a heavier role inside financial institutions.

Core systems still have to process transactions reliably, while analytics teams need fresher information to understand how customers and risks are changing.

AI raises the stakes further because production use cases depend on governed data environments that can operate safely inside real financial workflows.

Many banks and fintech firms have tested AI for years, although fragmented data architecture still makes production deployment difficult.

Information often sits across separate systems, creating delay and duplication.

Those weaknesses become harder to ignore when institutions start using AI for fraud detection or real-time decisioning, where poor data quality can limit how far the technology can go.

Partners and Open Source Help Build Local Trust

The same logic behind localisation also shapes OceanBase’s partner strategy.

Evan said the company combines local partners with global technology, with trained service partners supporting database migration, operations and maintenance alongside a global 24/7 after-sales team.

OceanBase says it has attracted dozens of partners across Southeast Asia, Japan, and China’s Hong Kong SAR and Macao SAR, covering sales, services and solution architecture.

That local layer matters when customers are running mission-critical systems, where remote support alone may not be enough.

Open source adds another layer to that trust.

Evan said the developer community is central to OceanBase’s global strategy, with the company committed to long-term open-sourcing of its core code and providing documentation and tools that developers can use, deploy and customise.

“Companies nowadays highly value open, vendor-neutral technology architectures,” Evan said.

Financial institutions are often cautious about vendor lock-in, especially when technology sits close to core operations.

Open source gives customers more visibility and allows developers and partners to adapt tools to local needs, which supports OceanBase’s wider push to build a more grounded ecosystem across its international markets.

Asia’s Infrastructure Race Is Entering a New Phase

The first wave of digital finance growth was judged mainly by adoption, as user numbers and transaction volumes became the easiest signs of progress.

Sustaining that growth now requires stronger infrastructure, especially as financial institutions face more pressure to keep systems reliable at a greater scale.

OceanBase is positioning itself around that shift through localisation, multi-cloud flexibility, partner-led implementation and open source, while actively pioneering AI database technologies to drive the next wave of industry evolution.

Its longer-term challenge will be proving that those pieces can translate into trust across different markets.

What comes after adoption may depend less on the apps customers see, and more on the data infrastructure that keeps those services running as the market becomes larger, more regulated and more technically demanding.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore based on an image by Louis H. via Magnific.

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The bank has processed more than 450 million transactions since launch, with GXBank users spending across categories such as food and beverage, retail, transport and utilities.

The update comes as Malaysia’s five digital banks reached 2.4 million customers and RM4.2 billion in deposits by end-2025, according to Bank Negara Malaysia’s Annual Report 2025.

Savings and Credit Use Grow Among GXBank Users

GXBank users created 1.3 million Savings and Bonus Pockets, earning more than RM24 million in interest through these pockets in 2025.

The bank noted that users saved 21 times more on average with Bonus Pockets, with emergencies, retirement and holidays among their top savings goals.

Its FlexiCredit product recorded 400,000 drawdowns, mainly for emergencies, spending gaps and large purchases.

GXBank added that 40% of loan applicants were from underserved segments.

The bank said its financial literacy content has also gained traction among users.

According to GXBank, it is the main choice for financial tips among its users, while 74% of underserved users found the tips useful.

Underserved users were most interested in debt-ratio insights, reflecting a focus on managing borrowing and financial commitments.

The top three scam concerns among users were impersonation, malware and suspicious alert notifications.

GXBank Expands Lending to Local Businesses

GXBank has also grown its lending to local businesses through GX Biz FlexiLoan, which has an average loan size of RM40,000 and a loan application acceptance rate of more than 70%.

About 70% of credit lines were used for business growth, with retail, food and beverage, and production and manufacturing among the top industries served.

The bank said around 60% of loans were applied for and processed after banking hours.

It also noted that about half of lower-income borrowers earning less than RM4,000 a month were unable to get a loan elsewhere.

Kaushik Chowdhury, CEO of GXBank, said,

“We are encouraged to see that when you reduce the traditional barriers to banking, the community responds with great support and love. These figures reflect more than just adoption and usage; they represent 1.4 million Malaysians who are building better habits and planning for their future.

While we are heartened by this progress, we remain focused on the work ahead – making banking intentionally seamless so that our customers’ financial progress can stay visible.”

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SJPP, a wholly owned company of the Ministry of Finance, will provide government-backed guarantees under its existing schemes, helping eligible businesses access financing with reduced collateral requirements.

The arrangement is designed to improve funding accessibility for SMEs that may otherwise face financing constraints.

Beyond new financing, eligible companies will also have access to restructuring, rescheduling, and repayment assistance options, aimed at easing cash flow pressures amid a challenging operating environment.

The initiative aligns with Bank Negara Malaysia’s SME Stabilisation Relief Facility, a RM5 billion programme supporting viable businesses affected by external economic pressures, including ongoing global geopolitical developments.

“As a financial institution with a long-standing commitment to the SME segment, RHB recognises the importance of supporting businesses through periods of uncertainty,”

said Dato’ Mohd Rashid Mohamad, Group Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer of RHB Banking Group.

“Through our partnership with SJPP and participation in the SME Stabilisation Relief Facility, we are committed to helping viable SMEs and mid-tier companies access financing and navigate current challenges with greater resilience.”

To enhance outreach, RHB and SJPP will jointly conduct roadshows across key regions including Klang Valley, Johor Bahru, and Penang.

The sessions aim to connect business owners directly with available financing programmes and improve awareness of government-backed support schemes.

“I strongly believe that SJPP’s collaboration with RHB strengthens the delivery of government guarantee schemes and expands financing support for viable businesses,”

said Juanita Rusmini Abdul Jalil, Acting Principal Officer of SJPP.

“By working closely with financial institutions, we are able to ensure that these programmes reach more SMEs, enabling them to sustain operations and move forward.”

RHB has been participating in SJPP initiatives since 2009 and reports that it has supported more than 12,000 SMEs to date across various sectors.

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Malaysia, based on image by RHB

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The agreement provides a comprehensive framework for the two central banks to collaborate on a range of established areas, including monetary policy, financial stability, and financial sector development.

While the MoU covers broad macroeconomic stability, it specifically highlights payment systems and digitalisation as emerging areas for the partnership.

“This MoU reaffirms the longstanding partnership between BNM and BI,”

said Dato’ Sri Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour, Governor, Bank Negara Malaysia.

“It also underscores our shared commitment to deepen collaboration across established areas of central banking, while expanding cooperation into emerging areas of mutual interest.”

The central banks will also use the agreement to drive capacity-building initiatives and share information regarding macroprudential policy.

“The MoU is a significant milestone in advancing the long-standing relationship between BI and BNM, and more than a symbolic commitment,”

said Perry Warjiyo, Governor, Bank Indonesia.

He added that the agreement strengthens institutional ties between the two central banks amid a challenging geopolitical landscape.

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He brings extensive financial sector experience to the role, having most recently driven digital banking and operational transformations as the chief executive of Bank Simpanan Nasional.

The arrival of Dato Jay Khairil at KWAP follows the departure of Datuk Hajah Nik Amlizan Mohamed.

She had led the organisation as CEO since 2020.

Dato’ Jay Khairil has spent nearly 30 years in the banking and financial services sector. His expertise spans financial management, internal audit, risk management and corporate governance.

During his time leading Bank Simpanan Nasional, he oversaw the institution’s digital banking initiatives and financial inclusion efforts.

He also previously served as the bank’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Internal Auditor.

His earlier career includes senior positions at CIMB Group, Bank Negara Malaysia and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Malaysia.

He also held roles at Hong Leong Bank and AmMerchant Bank.

A chartered banker and certified financial services auditor, Dato’ Jay Khairil will now steer KWAP’s operational and strategic priorities.

His mandate includes overseeing disciplined investment strategies and maintaining sound governance for the national pension fund.

Watch Dato’ Jay Khairil share his perspectives on leadership and Malaysia’s financial sector below:

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The partnership provides the real-time communication backbone for Ryt Bank’s AI-driven digital banking platform, built around a “Zero-UI” model where users can bypass traditional app navigation and simply issue instructions such as sending money to a contact, with the system executing the transaction seamlessly.

At the core of this capability is Tencent Cloud Chat (IM), which transmits AI commands and transaction data while supporting end-to-end encryption and full message auditing to meet stringent banking security and compliance standards.

Tencent Cloud also supports the platform through its global infrastructure of more than 3,200 edge nodes, ensuring low-latency performance and stable connectivity across the region.

Since launch, Ryt Bank has seen rapid uptake, handling 50,000 active users on day one without downtime and scaling to over 1.2 million users within seven months.

Nearly half of its customers actively engage with its conversational AI feature, Ryt AI.

YTL AI Labs powers Ryt AI through ILMU, a Malaysian sovereign AI model developed in collaboration with Ryt Bank, enabling multilingual conversational banking in Malay, English, and Chinese.

“Southeast Asia is a key hub for digital innovation, and we are proud to support ambitious pioneers like Ryt Bank in creating a future-forward banking experience,”

said Kenneth Siow, Regional Director for Southeast Asia and General Manager for Singapore and Malaysia at Tencent Cloud International.

Wilson Soon, interim CEO of Ryt Bank, added:

“Tencent Cloud has been a strategic partner in achieving this goal. The Tencent Cloud Chat (IM) feature was straightforward to integrate, providing the stable, low-latency communication required to handle high-concurrency transactions smoothly, which is fundamental to our growth and our ability to strengthen customer trust.”

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Malaysia, based on image by Tencent Cloud

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