The quiet infrastructure company on a mission to create a world without currency borders.
Every time money crosses a border, a small toll gets collected in the gap between two currencies. It rarely shows up on an invoice, yet over billions of transactions it adds up to real money leaking out of global commerce. M-DAQ Global, a fintech founded in Singapore in 2010, has spent more than a decade building the plumbing to make that toll visible - and, crucially, predictable.
At its core, M-DAQ is business-to-business financial infrastructure. It gives companies a way to convert, collect and pay across currencies with what it calls "clarity and certainty" - transparent pricing and, in many cases, guaranteed exchange rates - delivered through a single API integration. The customers are not everyday consumers. They are the marketplaces, exchanges, fintechs and corporates whose products depend on money moving cleanly between countries. When those rails work, nobody notices. That invisibility is more or less the point.
The company's guiding line - "create a world without currency borders" - is trademarked, and it doubles as a product spec. Founder Richard Koh has said he first spotted the problem around 2001, watching how slow and expensive it was to trade across borders because of currency friction. The formal company came nearly a decade later. That long runway helps explain why M-DAQ reads less like a flashy consumer app and more like a patient piece of market infrastructure.
M-DAQ's clients fall into four broad camps, and the interesting thing is that they share almost nothing except the same underlying pain: cross-border currency friction. Solve that one primitive well, and wildly different businesses line up for it.
Global platforms that need shoppers to pay in their home currency while merchants get paid in theirs - without the checkout math turning into a leak. M-DAQ's rails are associated with names like AliExpress, JD.com, Tmall and Grab.
Securities exchanges and stockbrokers that let investors trade foreign securities need reliable FX pricing and benchmarking baked into the trade. M-DAQ's SaaS tools serve multi-currency securities trading.
Payment companies and remittance firms that embed FX and settlement into their own products - using M-DAQ as the wholesale layer beneath their consumer-facing brand.
Corporates, online travel agencies and businesses without a large treasury desk that want hedging, collections and payments handled as a managed service.
Client names drawn from M-DAQ's public brand materials. Associations reflect stated partnerships and are approximate in scope.
The core FX engine. Lets buyers pay in their home currency while merchants receive their preferred one, using rate aggregation and algorithmic pricing to deliver guaranteed rates. Named for the magic-carpet ride across currencies.
Spot contracts, guaranteed rates and forward contracts for enterprises and SMEs - all reachable through one integration rather than a patchwork of bank desks.
A B2B cross-border payments and collections platform brought in-house via acquisition, adding multi-currency accounts and an ASEAN payments hub.
FX risk management and treasury tooling for corporates that don't run a full in-house treasury team.
Pricing, benchmarking and "trading the right chart" tools built for securities exchanges and brokers handling multi-currency trades.
Through subsidiary M-DAQ Market Solutions, dealing in over-the-counter derivatives - unlocked by an MAS Capital Markets Services licence.
Create a world without currency borders.
Plenty of companies move money across borders. What M-DAQ leans on is the ability to say a rate up front and stand behind it - guaranteed pricing made possible by aggregating liquidity and applying its own algorithmic pricing. Two moves reinforce that promise: buying Wallex in 2022 to own the payments and collections layer, and securing an MAS Capital Markets Services licence, the kind of unglamorous regulatory approval that lets a fintech offer derivatives and mean it when it says "certainty."
The result is positioning as embedded infrastructure rather than a consumer brand. Where a shopper might recognize a remittance app, M-DAQ prefers to be the layer underneath - the reason the checkout, the exchange or the payout simply works.
Illustrative emphasis based on public product and licensing signals, not disclosed revenue splits.
The model is classic B2B financial infrastructure. Revenue comes from FX spreads and pricing on conversions, transaction and settlement fees on payments and collections, and subscription or service fees for treasury, hedging and benchmarking tools. Distribution runs through direct enterprise sales and API integrations that embed M-DAQ inside a client's own product. On the cap table sit marquee institutional names - Affinity Equity Partners led a S$200 million (about US$145 million) Series D in 2021, alongside earlier backers including Ant Group, EDBI, Samsung Ventures and NTT Docomo Business.
Later-stage funding (reported as Series E in some aggregated datasets, 2024) is not fully confirmed by primary sources and is treated as approximate.
Richard Koh notices how slow and costly cross-border currency trade is and begins sketching a fix.
The company is formally established in Singapore to tackle cross-border FX.
Raises S$200M (~US$145M) led by Affinity Equity Partners to fuel regional growth.
Acquires B2B cross-border payments firm Wallex, adding payments and collections to the FX ecosystem.
Secures a CMS licence enabling M-DAQ Market Solutions to deal in OTC derivatives.
Tan Choon Seng becomes Group CEO; founder Richard Koh moves to non-executive Chairman.
M-DAQ operates in one of fintech's most crowded arenas - cross-border FX and payments - alongside players like Wise, Airwallex, Nium, Thunes, Convera and Corpay, and against incumbent bank FX desks. Its expertise is narrow and deep: FX pricing, rate optimization and the risk machinery that makes guaranteed rates possible. Rather than chase the consumer wallet, it positions upstream, as the wholesale engine that other platforms plug into.
That Singapore base is not incidental. A home market of under six million people forces a company to build for the world from day one, and M-DAQ's spread across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Japan and the UK reflects a business designed around the Asian trade corridors where cross-border volume concentrates.
Founder & Chairman
A Fellow Chartered Accountant with a background at Credit Suisse First Boston, PwC and JPMorgan/Chase Manhattan. He conceived M-DAQ around 2001 and founded it in 2010; today he serves as non-executive Chairman.
Group Chief Executive Officer
Joined M-DAQ in January 2022 as chief of staff and GM of operations, then was elevated to Group CEO in 2025 - an insider promotion that kept the roadmap steady through the handover.
Links open YouTube searches so you can find the latest official videos rather than a single dated clip.
It provides foreign-exchange and cross-border payment infrastructure, letting businesses convert, collect and pay across currencies with transparent pricing and guaranteed rates through a single API.
It was founded by Richard Koh, who is now Chairman. Tan Choon Seng was appointed Group CEO in 2025.
Aladdin is M-DAQ's flagship FX solution. It lets buyers pay in their home currency while merchants receive their preferred one, using rate aggregation and algorithmic pricing to offer guaranteed rates.
E-commerce marketplaces, securities exchanges and brokers, fintechs, payment processors, remittance firms and corporates across 45+ markets - including names like AliExpress, JD.com and Grab.
Across multiple rounds, including a S$200 million (~US$145M) Series D led by Affinity Equity Partners in 2021, with backers such as Ant Group, EDBI and Samsung Ventures. Later-stage funding has been reported through 2024.
Sources include M-DAQ Global's official website and press releases, Fintech News Singapore, Crunchbase, Tracxn, CB Insights, PitchBook, Finance Magnates, MARKETECH APAC and FF News. Figures such as annual transaction volume, revenue and later-stage funding are drawn from public and third-party datasets and should be treated as approximate. Leadership and licensing details reflect the most recent public reporting available.