Business marketplace lender Loan Frame has announced a $2.25 million fundraise that will help the firm expand its business in India as demonetization and the Indian economy present new opportunities for growth; participants in the $2.25 million funding round included the co-founder of Vedanta Capital, the former chairman of Visa International and the co-chief executive of MIO Partners; the platform has stated it is seeking to build the largest small and medium-sized business lending marketplace in the sub-continent; expects to lend $150 million over the next two years with both secured and unsecured loans. 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
One of India’s major banks, Federal Bank, has partnered with Ripple to create a blockchain based remittances product; India was...
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has refuted the fraudulent release or misuse of India's Aadhaar biometrics data after media reports claimed the release of Aadhaar data involving a private bank, its business correspondence agency and an e-sign agency; the UIDAI reports that an attempt was made to access data but internal security systems prevented the data's release; the incident exemplifies the strict security surrounding the use of Aadhaar data in India. Source
Amazon India is integrating its first small business lender via API into the Amazon Lending marketplace; India’s Flexiloans will allow...
Tokyo-based fintech company MoneyForward could go public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market by September; its market cap is expected to be JPY10 to 20 billion ($90 to $180 million); founded in 2012, MoneyForward is a personal financial management app which includes accounting functions, payroll service, statement collection, expense reporting, financial projections and the ability to send an invoice; MoneyForward has over four million individual users in Japan. Source
Banks call on Congress to freeze new ILC approvals How the pandemic is propelling Zelle With Robinhood’s UK launch delayed,...
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)
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) had meetings with various bitcoin exchanges this week including BTCC, OKCoin and Huobi; along with the meetings two press releases were issued; according to a translation from Coindesk, the document reads, "Bitcoin is not a currency and shouldn't be viewed as such. Those who invest in bitcoin should accordingly be aware of the risks it poses and protect their investment"; officials also reminded exchanges about complying with local state laws and other regulations. Source
Singapore based fintech company Trade Finance Market (TFM) recently launched their Invoice Check solution to cut down on trade finance fraud; the new blockchain based registry will help stop invoices from being paid more than once; they built the solution in the past year on the ethereum blockchain and it uses smart contracts; "Our system is in public beta and provides a manual method of entering invoices and having them checked against a blockchain-hosted database. This data is stored on the blockchain and funders are alerted if there is a potential risk of double financing," Raj Uttamchandani, the company's executive director, tells Global Trade Review. Source