Australian online lender SocietyOne is celebrating its fifth year in business with its first loan issued in August 2012; in June 2017 the platform reported cumulative originations of $300 million and since inception has helped over 13,000 customers; the firm says it has plans for expanding to new areas of lending over the long-term and will seek to obtain a 2% to 3% share of the $100 billion consumer finance market. Source
Southern Cross Financial is seeking to take advantage of New Zealand's expanding real estate supply with challenges in traditional mortgage lending; on December 1, the firm will become a P2P mortgage lender, evolving from a mortgage brokerage business; the firm has been arranging loans between alternative credit consumers and approximately 150 investors as a mortgage broker; the new P2P structure will provide a more standardized process for borrowers and investors. Source
Cboe Proposes Plan That Could Curb Advantages of Fast Traders European banking needs a Big Bang Hong Kong-based EMQ raises...
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Austrade have signed an agreement with the UK that will facilitate fintech innovation in both countries; the agreement will help to support introductions and the sharing of information on regional fintech business; as part of the agreement the CBA will also utilize its London Innovation Lab for UK and European networking. Source

Renren is a publicly traded company that operates a social networking platform and also has an investment unit that invests in private US fintech companies; Lend Academy previously wrote about Renren and their private market fintech holdings in January; Renren was one of SoFi's first investors reporting 21% ownership in the company at the end of 2015; it’s now been reported that Renren has sold a portion of its share in the company, in association with a SoFi fundraising, receiving net proceeds of $91.9 million. Source
Bloomberg Intelligence provides insight on Asia's fintech market in 2017; in internet finance Alibaba and Tencent have a strong market position with high barriers to entry set for the growing market; blockchain is expected to remain at the forefront of fintech development with use in online money transfers, electronic payments, banking and internet finance; insurtech will also be important with technology focused on sales distribution, product development and client engagement; data tracking, artificial intelligence and internet of things technology are also expected to be factors for insurtech. Source
Koubei was founded in 2015 with investment from Alibaba and Ant Financial; the firm offers online e-commerce services for merchants and is part of a diversified group of Alibaba affiliates; in January the firm reported new capital of $1.1 billion from external investors; investors now supporting the firm include Silver Lake, CDH Investments, Yunfeng Capital and Primavera Capital. Source
Hong Kong financial regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), has announced that tokens issued via initial coin offerings (ICOs) may be classified as securities; the classification may extend beyond ICOs into digital asset exchanges dealing in the tokens. Source
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance was victims of what the CEO called a well orchestrated large scale security breach; more than $40mn...
SRS Fin Tech Labs has announced the launch of a new marketplace lending platform in India called OxyLoans; firm seeks to originate $1 billion in loans by 2024; loans will be available in India, GCC and the UK; rates on loans will range from 12% to 36% with loans up to Rs 4 lakh (approximately $5,890). Source
