51 Credit Card, in cooperation with Harvest Investment, has launched an investment fund with RMB1 billion ($150 million); 51 Credit Card in particular favors companies with good online lending users, big data and traffic acquisition capacity. Source (Chinese)
Alibaba-backed Ant Financial sold $578 million worth of securities backed against small loans granted to consumers on "Double 11" day, the festival to celebrate singlehood and the world's largest online shopping day; Chongqing Alibaba Small Loan provided the underlying loans for the asset-backed security through an online consumer credit portal, Ant Check Later ("Huabei" in Chinese); the Shanghai Stock Exchange approved the offering and allowed it to be privately placed last Monday to qualified institutional investors. Source
Pindrop’s Vijay Balasubramaniyan on how top bank call centers are navigating the COVID crisis The Timing Of Apple’s QR Code...
AltFi sat down with Revolut’s Rishi Stocker who is leading their effort to expand into Japan; Revolut has found the Japanese market to be more challenging than initially hoped; key issues include regulators want a local presence and for the fintech to hire someone with on the ground expertise; they also want to ensure their product targets the right customer in Japan. Source.
Australian lending platform Timelio has received investment from new investor, Anthony Thomson; Anthony Thomson is founder of Atom Bank and Metro Bank; the Timelio platform has funded over $100 million in invoices since launching approximately two years ago. Source
Sequoia Capital and IDG Capital are investing in Bitmain, the world's largest bitcoin mining company; Bitmain is seeking $50 million in funding to expand its artificial intelligence capabilities, after previously focusing on developing chips for mining; Bitmain claimed in August that the company is at a $1 billion valuation, and is planning an IPO. Source
The China Banking Regulatory Commission has released new rules on disclosure requirements for online lenders; new rules additionally require online lenders to disclose the information of "compensation", which is the money that third parties pay for the loans that cannot be paid back by borrowers; stricter rules in terms of information disclosure will help investors to know the operational conditions of online lenders better. Source (Chinese)
An article in Hacker Noon digs into crypto platform NEO, exploring the company's background, website and white paper; what makes NEO different is that it doesn't have a crypto coin and NEO uses fiat as its internal currency; the NEO coin is similar to a traditional security, functioning as shares in the company that runs the platform. Source
Australian marketplace lender, SocietyOne, has been growing rapidly in 2016; the firm has now originated $200 million (USD $147 million) in loans since its inception in August of 2012 after reporting a record month of originations in November with lending volume of $15.3 million (USD $11.25 million); in 2016, the firm has originated $126 million (USD $92.66 million), which accounts for the majority of its originations; the firm has hired a new chief marketing officer and has plans for continued growth with a focus on obtaining 2% to 3% of the consumer finance market by 2021. Source
CoinTribe is using advanced credit modeling to provide online lending to small and medium-sized businesses in India; it also offers personal loans; its services are leading the marketplace for small and medium-sized businesses; company provides an online marketplace for loans and also offers platform as a service digital technology to banks; CoinTribe has been originating loans since March 2016; has raised $3 million in funding and has plans to raise another $10 million to $15 million in the near-term. Source