National Australia Bank's (NAB) venture capital business, NAB Ventures has joined in an investment round raising $24 million for Veem, a foreign exchange startup business; Veem provides business to business cross border payment services with blockchain technology; NAB and NAB Ventures have been actively involved in technology investments also investing in Data Republic, Medipass Solutions and Localz; Australia is also taking a lead role in developing blockchain standards globally; it is active in the development of blockchain standards through the ISO/TC 307 and will host the first international blockchain standards meeting for ISO/TC 307. Source
HMBradley’s new credit card offers awards that adjust to spending Google, CFPB Team On Housing, Mortgage Search ‘Experience’ A Seminal...
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
CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund (CEFIF) announced three investments in new fintech companies at LendIt USA 2017; the investments were a series C round in Trumid, an electronic trading platform for the bond market, series B round in WeConvene, an online corporate access management ERP provider for capital markets, and a seed round in WorldCover, an innovative peer-to-peer insurance network; Anju Patwardhan, senior partner of CEFIF, said: "We believe the Chinese fintech market will continue to grow in 2017 and beyond, as many three to five year-old companies have grown into large-scale operations. We expect many of these to mature into high-quality, mid-to-late stage companies." Source
New regulations slowed the growth of P2P lending in China in 2016; data from P2P001 reports that transaction volume in P2P lending increased by 138% in 2016 to over 2.8 trillion yuan ($403 billion) however that was only half of the transaction volume growth reported in 2014 and 2015; on August 24, 2016 the government issued new requirements for the industry, one of which requires that lenders partner with banks for custodian services; this adds additional costs for lenders and as of the end of 2016 only 7.98% had partnered with a custodian bank. 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
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
Sources report that Chinese online property and casualty insurance company Zhong An is planning for an initial public offering (IPO) in China; the firm was founded by Alibaba's Jack Ma, Tencent's Pony Ma and Ma Mingzhe from Ping An Insurance Group of China; a primary product for the firm is e-commerce shipping insurance which accounts for approximately 50% of the business; currently the firm's major shareholders include Ant Financial with 16% and Tencent Holdings Ltd. with 12%; in 2015 it reported a valuation of $8 billion and it currently plans to raise an additional 2 billion yuan ($290 million) to help it prepare for the IPO. Source
Released at the Boao Forum for Asia this week, "The Report on Internet Finance 2017" details China's internet finance market, including its experience in mobile payments and online lending; discusses the opportunity for growth through e-commerce in Asia, specifically through the Belt and Road Initiative; highlights how mobile payments, peer-to-peer lending, online insurance and other internet finance businesses are evolving within the country's economy. Source
ICICI Bank, one of the “Big Four” banks of India introduced banking services on WhatsApp just three months ago; the...