Credit China Fintech plans to expand its investments in peer-to-peer lending and payment companies; it invests in companies in the fintech industry and has recently invested in Ping An Securities Group Holdings Ltd. and blockchain technology firm BitFury Group Ltd.; recent investments have caused some scrutiny from short seller Anonymous Analytics which negatively affected the stock price in December 2016; the firm's stock price has regained its value since then with a current market capitalization of approximately $3 billion; over the past three years the firm has raised HK$4.3 billion ($554 million) and it plans to acquire at least one more company in the first quarter of 2017. Source
Fintech is helping to increase consumer spending in China as lenders provide increased access to capital; these lenders are becoming more integrated with merchants and providing point of sale credit options; Dumaio is one example of a fintech lender that has been successful by adapting to market demand; real estate fintech platforms are also emerging in the country with Shenzhen-based Touchouwang offering domestic real estate investment opportunities and Beijing-based Uoolu offering foreign real estate investments. Source
China is reporting 478,000 individual cases of complaints with problematic P2P lending firms; accounts for approximately 4.5% of the investors in P2P; the report coincides with the country's fraudulent P2P lending activity; 1,300 platforms were named problematic in 2016 with 2,388 platforms in good standing. Source
Chinese bitcoin exchanges OKCoin and Huobi have announced they will pause bitcoin withdrawals for one month; the companies report that the halted withdrawals will allow them to improve their anti-money laundering capabilities and improve their processes for mitigating fraudulent transactions. Source
Boris Batin and Alexander Dunaev have grown a successful lending startup after partnering together and launching ID Finance in 2012; the company is an online balance sheet lender that has been expanding throughout Russia, Europe and South America; the partners claim a digital lending business model that can launch and obtain profitability in nine months; part of their success is attributed to identifying challenging markets with growth potential that traditional banks have not entered. Source
Ant Financial is planning to raise $3 billion primarily through a debt offering to finance its acquisition of MoneyGram; it is also planning for future acquisitions; the company has been valued at $75 billion and is still planning a near-term initial public offering. Source
The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF) has released its first report on the alternative finance market, titled, "Africa & Middle East Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report"; the report was created with support from Energy4Impact, UKAid and CME Group Foundation; for 2015 the report cites growth of 59% and a total market of $242 million; Robert Wardrop, executive director at the CCAF says development trends in Africa and the Middle East had a different focus which was on equity crowdfunding and online micro finance as opposed to consumer and business P2P lending in other global markets. Source
Fang Fan has reportedly disappeared leaving investors unable to withdraw their funds from eight P2P lending platforms managed by Fan and controlled by Beijing Qiyuan Fortune Network Technology Co. in China; the platforms' investors are now unable to withdraw over 1 billion yuan ($145 million) in funds; platforms operated by Fang Fan included cmtouzi.com, naipinglicai.com, zaodianlicai.com, wanerjialicai.com, qianguan360.com, lexinglicai.com, xjinfu.com and huoniu360.com; cmtouzi.com continues to operate with a plan to provide investment withdrawals for investors. Source
Money360-affiliate M360 Advisors has registered with the South Korea Financial Supervisory Service; the registration allows institutional investors from South Korea to invest in the firm's real estate fund; the fund invests in secured US commercial real estate properties through bridge loans and offers global investors a high yield fixed income alternative; the fund has already received $65 million from a South Korean institutional investor and is planning for investment of $250 million in the first half of 2017; the fund is managed to provide international tax efficient investing along with high yield fixed income returns and has a number of other foreign investors including investors in China, Singapore, South Africa, Europe, Canada, the Netherlands and Kuwait. Source
The Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has announced the formation of an advisory committee focused on fintech; development of the advisory committee follows the demonetization of the country's currency and lack of regulation instituted by federal government officials in regards to the P2P lending industry and fintech in general; the advisory committee will include representatives from across the entire fintech sector; a key initiative for the committee will be to mobilize household savings from India's consumers through new risk capital and debt investments. Source