The Series A fundraising included both debt and equity capital; investment was led by K2 Venture Capital with participation from STI Financial Group and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper who made his first investment in an Indonesian startup; firm will use the funds to expand its lending and build its technology with plans for adding new research and development centers for machine learning and algorithm design; platform provides short term micro-loans of between US$75 and US$350 for a maximum of 30 days. Source
Alibaba financial services subsidiary Ant Financial says it is interested in expanding to Japan; the financial services firm has been expanding in the Eastern World with ventures in Thailand, Indonesia, Australia The Philippines and Korea; it already has plans to double the number of Japanese stores that accept Alipay to more than 45,000 this year; while further details on an expansion timeline have not been released, a spokesperson for the firm has said, "In Japan, there is a strong need of financial services from small and micro enterprises, and Ant is willing to share its standards and experience with local partners." Source
The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has launched a new initiative to fast track Fintech patents; typically a patent...
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
ASX has come under pressure to delay the implementation of a plan to use blockchain to clear and settle equities...
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
New statistics show e-commerce spending in China continues to rise, with projections estimating the average digital buyer will spend RMB12,198 ($1,836) online in 2017, an increase of 7% over 2016; growth is expected to slow to 5% or less after 2017; the forecasts could point to a peak for China's e-commerce giants and also serve as a catalyst for the broad ranging expansion of China's top e-commerce companies. Source
CreditEase has been reporting significant fintech investment from a range of fintech funds managed by the firm; it announced this week that its CreditEase Wealth Management Offshore Private Credit Fund (OPCF) was investing $30 million in OnDeck and LendingHome and that it also had plans for another Offshore Private Credit Fund (OPCF II) focused on fintech with a $200 million investment target; at LendIt USA 2017 the firm announced three new fintech investments for its CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund (CEFIF) which has $1 billion in total committed capital; it's also investing in Israeli fintech through two funds focused on tech startups in Israel. Source
Red envelope gifting is a Chinese New Year tradition that has become digitized as a result of advanced payment processing; the January 27 weekend marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year and the country is expected to transact over 100 billion digital envelopes, an increase from 32 billion in 2015 which reported a 1,000% increase from the prior year; payment processors integrated with social media have increasingly been gaining market share and supporting digital transaction growth; bitcoin transactions are also expected to increase for the Chinese New Year. Source
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance was victims of what the CEO called a well orchestrated large scale security breach; more than $40mn...