AsiaFIN Holdings Corp. (OTCQB : ASFH) – provides IP protected fintech solutions to ASEAN (excluding China & India) based financial institutions / corporates. ASFH has powerful ambitions to expand far beyond its region. The drive by many economies to progress to entirely digital payments economies has reached natural resistance points that can be overcome by ASFH’s solutions. We are expecting 4Q24 numbers to beat our current forecasts. 4Q has been ASFH’s most significant quarter historically. ASFH operates in the fastest global growth segments in digital payments, RegTech and RPA and within the fastest growing region – Asia Pacific, in which ASFH’s home market, ASEAN, is located…Read More on AsiaFIN 4Q24 Pre-Results 

AsiaFIN Holdings Corp. (OTCQB : ASFH) – strategic changes suggest growth plan accelerated further. There is enormous effort and significant change going into new products for organic growth and ambitious acquisition plans. As a result we have rebased our forecasts, cutting our full expected dilution and 4Q and YE24E estimates in favour of a higher NPV overall for our 5 year DCF. We have nevertheless remained extremely conservative. We do not believe that the US tariff policies will have any impact on initial ASFH expansion plans. No US product launches are captured in our valuation…Read More on AsiaFIN Update 

AsiaFIN Holdings Corp. (OTCQB : ASFH) – aggressive growth inflection point. ASFH provides IP protected fintech solutions to ASEAN based financial institutions / corporates. 3Q24A numbers were beats for revenue, EBITDA, EBIT, EAT, adjusted Net Income and adjusted fully diluted EPS. Our post results discussion with management suggested there is a race against the clock to deliver a 4Q24E beat on our estimates, nevertheless we remain confident that revenue growth year on year will will exceed low case 28%, delivering evidence that a consistent inflection point has been reached. We expect to issue a new set of long run forecasts and valuation range in due course, and expect to be able to split out organic vs. acquisition revenue growth.Read More on AsiaFIN Post-Results 3Q24

CIEL Limited (SEMDEX: CIEL) is a Mauritius listed diversified industrial company with a very attractive long run growth opportunity. Whilst CIEL missed our revenue target by -3.4%, it delivered very significant beats on profit measures EBITDA +23.7%, PAT +135.9% and EPS (dil) +30.7%. Group NAVPS also grew 11% and gearing fell to 25.1% vs. 28.6% y/y. CIEL beat our YE24A FCFE forecast by 5%. Operationally there is a great deal to like. We are forecasting significant improvement in Group FCFE YE25E and YE26E, CIEL has a bank of saleable assets, WCAP and margin improvement opportunities. Leisure is performing well, Financials are growing strongly, and Healthcare is exiting a capex investment cycle that should bolster FCFs. Restructuring in Textile YE24A could generate significant FCF margin improvement in YE25E.…Read More on CIEL Post-Results YE24A

AsiaFIN Holdings Corp. (OTCQB : ASFH) – aggressive growth inflection point. ASFH provides IP protected fintech solutions to ASEAN based financial institutions / corporates. We are expecting 3Q24 numbers in line with our expectations. Revenue and profitability appear to be subject to seasonality with 4Q being the most significant quarter. Our full year forecasts are heavily weighted towards 4Q performance. ASFH’s strategy is to expand internationally out of Malaysia via direct sales, partnerships, JVs and acquisitions. ASFH operates in the fastest global growth segments in digital payments, RegTech and RPA and within the fastest growing region – Asia Pacific, in which ASFH’s home market, ASEAN, is located.…Read More on AsiaFIN Pre-Results 3Q24

AsiaFIN Holdings Corp. (OTCQB : ASFH) – aggressive growth inflection point. ASFH provides IP protected fintech solutions to ASEAN based financial institutions / corporates – ASFH delivers Robotic Process Automation (RPA) using Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR); Regulatory Technology (RegTech); AI driven cheque processing and; ESG reporting services. ASFH has an organic and aggressive acquisition growth plan to expand both within ASEAN and in new westward territories. Clients – 20 RegTech financial institutions and >60 banks and >100 corporations. The fastest global growth in digital payments, RegTech and RPA are within the Asia Pacific region in which ASEAN, and so ASFH’s home markets, are located…Read More on AsiaFIN Initation

AsiaFIN Holdings Corp. (OTCQB : ASFH) has moved to an aggressive growth inflection point. ASFH provides IP protected fintech solutions for payment processing to financial institutions and other segments – it delivers Robotic Process Automation (RPA) using ICR, Regulatory Technology (RegTech), AI driven check processing and an ESG reporting platform. Clients are financial
institutions currently concentrated in the ASEAN region, ~680m pop YE23A. ASFH has an organic and aggressive acquisition growth plan to expand within ASEAN and new westward territories. Clients – 20 RegTech financial institutions and >88 banks and >100 corporations.…Read More on AsiaFIN CIC

CIEL Limited (SEMDEX: CIEL) is a Mauritius listed diversified industrial company. In this update we focus on CIEL’s Finance Cluster which in 1H24 accounted for 35.9% of Group (Grp) FCF, 25.8% of Grp EBITDA and 15.5% of Grp revenues. CIEL has a diversified international growth portfolio of 25 companies across 6 ‘clusters’ – Textile, Properties, Healthcare, Hotels & Resorts, Agro and Finance. CIEL’s geographical footprint spreads across 10 emerging markets in Asia and Africa. CIEL Finance 1H24A delivered 11.5% rev growth y/y and 51.4% of our revs YE24 CIEL Finance forecast;…Read More on Ciel Fianace Cluster

CIEL Ltd. (SEMDEX: CIEL) is an investment holding company focused on six [6] sectors across 10 emerging markets (Asia and Africa). Its diversified portfolio and geographic footprint opens up opportunities in some of the fastest growing regions of the world (Asia and East Africa). Africa is the last great development growth opportunity. Mauritius remains the single largest contributor to geographical revenues. Mauritius has a stable…Read More on Ciel Ltd Post-Results

CIEL Ltd. (SEMDEX: CIEL) is an investment holding company focused on six [6] sectors across 10 emerging markets (Asia and Africa). Its diversified portfolio and geographic footprint opens up opportunities in some of the fastest growing regions of the world (Asia and East Africa). Africa is the last great development growth opportunity. Mauritius remains the single largest contributor to geographical revenues. Mauritius has a stable…Read More on Ciel Ltd Inition

CIEL Ltd. (SEMDEX: CIEL) is an investment holding company focused on six [6] sectors across 10 emerging markets (Asia and Africa). Its diversified portfolio and geographic footprint opens up opportunities in some of the fastest growing regions of the world (Asia and East Africa). Africa is the last great development growth opportunity. Mauritius remains the single largest contributor to geographical revenues. Mauritius has a stable…Read More on Ciel Ltd 

London Stock Exchange Group (LSE: LSEG) is a financial markets infrastructure company operating across the capital markets value chain – capital issuance, pre-trade, trade execution to post-trade. LSEG appears undervalued based upon its top line growth potential and potential OPEX savings. LSEG operates via three divisions – Data & Analytics (data insight and management), Capital Markets (primary issuance and secondary market trading), and Post Trade (clearing, risk management and compliance). The Group has a robust financial position with high…Read More On ICE CIC

Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (NYSE: ICE) is a leading provider of market infrastructure spanning major asset classes including futures, equities, fixed income and US residential mortgages. ICE’s portfolio de-risks business cycle exposure shielding it from volatility and supports consistent growth. ICE owns and operates 10 exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange Group (NYSE) and the Chicago Stock Exchange (CSE); along with 6 clearing houses across the US, UK, EU, Canada, Asia Pacific and Middle East. ICE is the 4th largest global exchange by total trading volume, 3.23bn contracts in…READ ICE CIC NOTE

ASX Limited (ASX: ASX) is Australia’s primary securities exchange and one of the world’s top 10 listed exchange groups by market capitalisation. Services include listings, trading, clearing and settlement, and other post-trade services. Trading products include interest rate derivatives, equities, fixed income, commodities and energy. ASX has a local monopoly in the Australian financial markets delivering attractive operating margins (EBIT adj. 1H22 64%). ASX’s balance sheet is strong – gross cash position of A$5.3bn. ASX is enjoying a significant boom period underpinned by new listings and the global growth trend of greater retail investor market participation – Nevertheless, we see hard coded reasons for…Read ASX CIC 

Deutsche Borse AG (Xetra: DB1) is one of the largest providers of market infrastructure worldwide. The company covers the entire financial market transaction process chain – indices and analytical solutions (pre-trading), trading and clearing services and settlement, liquidity and  collateral management (post trading). It operated via four segments YE21A – Data & Analytics €0.48bn (14% of revenue), Trading & Clearing €1.81bn (51%), Fund Services €0.38bn (11%) and Security Service €0.835bn (24%). ESG related income was 7% of net revs YE21A. The diversified segments provide resilience to volatility in markets and also includes a number of high growth areas. DB1 is trading at…Read DB1 CIC

The Reputation Exchange (REPX) is a fintech/esports company with a strongly differentiated social engagement neobank model using affiliate marketing. With branded prepaid cards assigned to top sporting and influencer brands planned for roll-out in the next 21 months. Since our last note REPX has received: LSE standard list sign-off, conditional US OTCQX ticker approval, its first patent approval for the singing card and increased its number of cards in production by 2023, and has launched AC Milan’s Italy REPX PayFan card in Dec 21. We have recast our revenue and cost...Read REPEX Reasearch Note

FCA banned the leading global crypto exchange by volume, Binance Markets, from doing business in the UK in June.  Concerns grow over cryptocurrency firms withdrawing 5MLD (anti-money laundering) applications.

On 25th June, Binance was the most liquid crypto market – the group of Binance markets hosted $17.3bn of crypto trades across its exchanges over 24 hours. The next nearest was ZG.com with $10.3bn…Read FCA Leads New Crypto Changes

Wirecard’s lack of transparency and numerous failures have been less than favourable for Fintech, the Frankfurt market and Commerzbank (which was pushed out of the DAX 30 by the Wirecard scandal), especially as it seeks to attract business from London. Hence, the need for a review of the current regulations and accepted practices by auditors and, to some extent banks.

However, the proposed changes seem to target financial auditors more than the companies that they are auditing, e.g. Wirecard. And whilst we believe that there need to be changes, it seems less sensible to create an asymmetric penalty system, company directors should also face a higher level of responsibility and risk for…Read Fintech Changes Auditing Future

On Thurdsay April 30, 2020 the entire market value of cryptocurrencies increased by $35bn (mcap as of 04/05/2020 is $243bn). This was mainly due to Bitcoin which by 29/04/2020 reached a price of $9,388.30 up from $7,746.90 on 28/04/2020, a 17% increase. By 01/05/2020 Bitcoin was at $8,821.60. The other 2 main cryptocurrencies traded, Ethereum and XRP, also showed signs of gains during this major market event. Ethereum increased to…Read More On Cryptocurrency Market