Perfios is an Indian fintech startup that has developed software products that help digital lenders, banks and financial institutions to analyze client data; the software can help reduce application times for loans, credit cards and insurance policies; the firm's $6.1 million fundraising was provided by New York-based venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners. Source
Chinese fintech company QuantGroup has filed an IPO application with the SEC, planning to raise $200 million from IPO; QuantGroup will start evaluating the needs of potential investors in as early as September; JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley are working as the financial advisors for this IPO. Source (Chinese)
China e-commerce business JD.com has announced the sale of its finance business which is focused on payments and investments; company will sell JD Finance for 14.3 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) in cash while also retaining some share in its future profits; with the spinoff of JD Finance, JD.com's business structure will now be similar to the structure of competitor Alibaba who also focuses on e-commerce and has a stake in payments finance business Ant Financial. Source
On November 14 to 18 Singapore held its first Fintech Festival providing S$1.15 million to ten fintech firms; supported by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks in Singapore, awards were given ranging from S$250,000 to S$50,000; the top prize of S$250,000 for the MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore Open) was given to fastacash Pte Ltd; the Fintech Festival follows significant expansion in Singapore which now has the largest fintech hub in the world and numerous subsidies available to attract fintech startup companies. Source
New York-based commercial real estate developer Tishman Speyer has partnered with CreditEase Wealth Management to invest $1.4 billion in China and other countries within the next three years; according to Tang Ning, CreditEase founder and CEO, the partnership will focus on long-term development, providing clients with globalized and diverse portfolios. Source
Ernst & Young announced its annual Fintech Asia 100 list at the Singapore FinTech Festival; Next Money, Ernst & Young and Visa all contributed to the list; statistics from the list reported 26% of the individuals were female, 38 entrepreneurs, 41 CEOs, 15 different markets, India with the most members on the list at 18, and Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China with 15. Source
The company plans to shut down all operations in Japan by end of June 2018; overseas Japanese investors who use domestic banks will still have access to trading activities in the local market; cost and resources were the main drivers behind the decision. Source.
The new partnership aims to increase access to financial services for individuals and small businesses; according to a Chinese press release translated by TechNode, the "credit factory" (in Chinese) model is a business model mainly used for credit certification of small and micro-sized enterprises as well as individuals; loans lent to such groups are small, but are lent at high frequency; the adoption of the "credit factory" mode, thanks to its high efficiency and economies of scale in handling petty loans, can help big financial firms gain some ground lost to the country's mushrooming small loan companies in the microfinance market; an upgrade to the traditional "credit factory", Dianrong-Quark Credit Factory utilizes such fintech means as big data, anti-fraud management systems and decision engine; it can help lenders reduce manual operations, save costs and cut operational risks through its powerful quantitative system when they handle credit certification for individuals or small and micro-sized businesses. Source
Bank account applicants must now have assets at the bank averaging 5 million yuan ($730,000) per day over the past three months, this threshold is an increase from 50,000 yuan ($7,280); the changes are being enacted to help restrict capital outflows and ease depreciation of the yuan; sources also report that the Bank of China has taken steps to set additional terms for restricting capital outflow; China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have reported they have no intention to implement similar rules. Source
The fund, which was set up as storage for excess cash from online spending, has now reached $165.6 billion in assets under management; this now exceeds the amount of JP Morgan's largest money market fund which is $150 billion; since the fund is so big it allows Ant Financial, Alibaba affiliate, to negotiate better rates with banks for capital; while many believe the likes of Google and Facebook could enter the market they have yet to do so. Source