Korea's Financial Services Commission just issued a guideline that limits most individual investors from committing more than 10 million won ($8,750) to P2P investments in a year; those individuals who have earnings over 100 million won ($87,500) can still commit up to 40 million won to P2P; Korean P2P platforms are complaining that investments in any equity project or loan portfolio tend to be skewed to a few individuals who invest more than 10 million won (60% of investors fall into this category on average across platforms there), therefore the new regulation will drive up funding costs; regulators say this over-concentration of funds from few investors is precisely the trend they hope to curtail. Source
Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and Tencent are leading e-commerce market growth, seeking to do everything from cloud computing to digital payments; the Chinese market infrastructure is also helping their business growth and their business models are rivaling comparative US companies; Jack Ma's Alibaba is expanding rapidly in the global markets with partnerships and acquisitions and Tencent is following closely with numerous acquisitions as well; investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates China's online retail market to double in size by 2020 to $1.7 trillion and aggressive market expansion from Alibaba and Tencent appears to be successfully supporting that estimate. Source
National Australia Bank's (NAB) venture capital business, NAB Ventures has joined in an investment round raising $24 million for Veem, a foreign exchange startup business; Veem provides business to business cross border payment services with blockchain technology; NAB and NAB Ventures have been actively involved in technology investments also investing in Data Republic, Medipass Solutions and Localz; Australia is also taking a lead role in developing blockchain standards globally; it is active in the development of blockchain standards through the ISO/TC 307 and will host the first international blockchain standards meeting for ISO/TC 307. Source
In a move that goes counter to the current regulatory trend the Taiwanese government has taken a positive approach to the new cryptocurrency market; "Just because China and South Korea are banning, doesn't mean that Taiwan should follow suit – there is a huge opportunity for growth in the future,” explained Wellington Koo, Chairman of Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission. Source.
China ranks top among 20 world markets in terms of fintech adoption, with 69% of surveyed consumer respondents saying they are actively using fintech services, 33 percentage points higher than the global average, according to a report by consultancy services provider EY; the report is based on more than 22,000 online interviews in 2017; around 64% of fintech users said they prefer using digital channels to manage "all aspects of their life"; money transfer and payment services are major drivers of the fast growth, said the report. Source
Oliver Wyman has published a report titled "Fintech In China: Hitting The Moving Target"; the report says when it comes to fintech, China could claim to be a world leader in some respects, in spite of an increasing number of voices questioning the health and legitimacy of the fintech business models; Oliver Wyman believes that technological advances, coupled with the unique circumstances of China's financial system, will propel fintech companies to further drive innovation and disrupt the traditional financial services space. Source
Several reports have recently pointed to China as the world's leading country for fintech innovation and adoption; in the first nine months of 2016 over 50% of global fintech investments went to China and the country is reporting the world's four largest fintech unicorns; overall, China has a number of unique factors fueling its fintech growth; some of the main factors include regulatory initiatives and tech savvy underserved consumers and SMEs driving demand; the country is also reporting corporate banks with higher comparative ROEs and greater willingness to invest in digital; additionally, the country's top e-commerce businesses, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, are also significantly influencing fintech growth with growing businesses and investments in payments as well as new technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence; P2P lending is one of fintech's dominant categories with China leading Asia-Pacific market development and reporting 99% of P2P transaction volume, a total value of $101.7 billion in 2015 and over 4,000 P2P lenders. Source
A report from WDZJ and yingcanzixun.com titled, "2016 China Online Lending Monthly Report (Nov.)" provides insight on China's online lending market in November; says online lending originations reached a new monthly high of CNY 200 billion in November; total historical origination volume of over CNY 3 trillion; 2,454 platforms with eight new businesses and 98 entering suspension or closing down. Source
India's demonetization of the Rs 500 ($7.32) and Rs 1,000 ($14.65) continues to help online alternative finance lenders; uncertain investors are increasingly utilizing alternative finance platforms as a safer investment over gold, real estate and the stock market; invoice financing platform KredX has reported investment increases of 400% to 500%; with less of a cash focused society, P2P lenders Capital Float, Faircent, i-lend and AnyTimeLoan.in have also reported significantly higher platform investments. Source
Loose credit and consumers who are no longer averse to loans have contributed to the rise in household debt as a share of GDP; numbers have risen from 28% to 40% in the last five years; the share of household loans to overall lending hit 67.5% in the third quarter of 2016, more than twice the share of the year before; China's household debt as a share of GDP is half of what it is in the US, though if the current pace continues it will come close to equaling the US percentage in a few short years. Source