The Bitcoin Cash (BCC) blockchain has successfully split away from the legacy chain; the block was mined by the China-based mining pool Viabtc at 2:14 pm EDT; the first Bitcoin Cash block was 1.9 MB in size, holding 6,985 transactions - much larger than BTC's 1MB limit and approximately 3,000 transaction throughput. Source
Tencent, with advantages in cloud computing, big data, social networking, and mobile payments, will cooperate with China Development Bank to provide students loans; China Development Bank is a "policy financial institute" under the State Council; the bank covers over 90% of the student loans market. Source (Chinese)
Russian marketplace lender Blackmoon has launched Blackmoon Crypto for tokenized investment vehicles; seeks to support management of tokenized funds; Blackmoon Crypto is incorporated in Singapore; it will not initially be partnering for US investments however the firm is applying for a broker dealer license in the US. Source
The Indian online lending platform has closed a $10 million debt funding deal with investment from Kotak Mahindra Bank, Aditya Birla Financial Services and other financial institutions; follows other recent capital investments; firm plans to use the funds to support its loan book and expand to 700 cities; its platform originates loans ranging from Rs 1 lakh ($1,570) to Rs 40 lakh ($62,817) with interest rates of 16% to 24% and provides loan funds within three days. Source
Dianrong has obtained $220 million from a Series D funding round; this latest funding was led by GIC Private Limited (Singapore's sovereign wealth fund), CMIG Leasing, and Simone Investment Managers, among others. Source
At LendIt's Lang Di Fintech conference this July in Shanghai, Up Financial CEO Steven Yuan talked about the power of big data and artificial intelligence for the economy; he calls this intelligent finance and believes that using these tools will allow for investing to come to the masses; he also thinks that the tools can help to lift up the broader economy; he points to a report by Boston Consulting Group about China's private investable assets in the next three years and believes there is an enormous opportunity to leverage wealth management; Up Financial's goal is to create a personalized new financial system for individual investors and big data plus artificial intelligence will allow for them to potentially reach these goals. Source
The regulator says, "digital tokens in Singapore will be regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) if the digital tokens constitute products regulated under the Securities and Futures Act"; if digital tokens fall under the definition of securities in the Securities and Futures Act then issuers are required to register a prospectus with MAS and other requirements may also apply to associated parties; overall the statement from the MAS increases the level of compliance needed for an initial coin offering. Source
Hongling Capital Monday had a press conference after the company announced to close its online lending business last week; Hongling Capital will be "upgraded" to Hongling Holding, and the latter will focus on industry finance, investment banking, asset management and wealth management, Hongling Chairman Zhou Shiping said in the press conference. Source (Chinese)
For the second quarter, Yirendai reported revenue of $174.5 million, beating estimates by $16.36 million and increasing revenue 58% from the second quarter of 2016; earnings per share remained steady at $0.66 and beat earnings estimates by $0.04; the company reported loans originated of $1.2 billion in the second quarter, an increase of 80% in comparison to the second quarter of 2016. Source
Franklin Tong, CEO of Astri, talks about Hong Kong's fintech industry influence on China; provides insight on how his company is using applied science to enhance Hong Kong's competitiveness in fintech; Astri was founded by the Hong Kong government and is focused on research and development for a range of solutions. Source