Singapore-based marketplace lender MoolahSense has added invoice financing; the service will provide another lending product for businesses; the firm's CEO says the product is intended to extend the business services it provides to underserved small businesses; the product will be available for short-term capital needs of up to $15,000 and is expected to target returns of 12% for investors. Source
HNA is one of China's most ambitious private conglomerate investors, investing $45 billion in global deals in the last three years with high profile deals including the buyout of Anthony Scaramucci's SkyBridge Capital, and multi-billion dollar stakes in Deutsche Bank AG and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.; Bloomberg reports on how the business is financed; its findings show a network of capital providers including a number of shadow bank lenders as well as trusts and asset managers resulting in over $10 billion of unlisted shares pledged to non-bank lenders and interest rates from shadow bank financings that far exceed benchmark rates from bank loans and bond issuances; Bloomberg reports additional details on HNA's financing structure and shadow banking loans as well as the shadow banking platforms it currently operates as subsidiaries. Source
WeLab Bank launches in Hong Kong JetClosing Raises $9M in Series B Funding How Payments Fintech Is Using Banking As...
51 Credit Card, in cooperation with Harvest Investment, has launched an investment fund with RMB1 billion ($150 million); 51 Credit Card in particular favors companies with good online lending users, big data and traffic acquisition capacity. Source (Chinese)
Bloomberg reports on the possibility of ride-sharing companies getting into financial services; Grab is a leading ride-hailing company in Southeast Asia; app users can now start sending credits which are used to pay for rides to other users; by the end of 2017 credits will be able to be used at 1,000 restaurants and retailers, turning Grab into much more of an e-payment platform than just a taxi service; in Indonesia, the 200,000 drivers of Go-Jek can use e-wallets to store their earnings and also spend funds on a variety of services; article also shares innovation in Kenya with M-Pesa as well as China's Alibaba and WeChat. 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
New regulations in China tightening controls on P2P lenders will now require P2P lenders to partner with a custodian bank; Chinese banks are not eagerly partnering with the alternative lenders as fraud has been rampant in the industry; less than 5% of the country's 2,534 P2P lenders currently have a partnership with a custodian; custodians will add another layer of authentication for the P2P lending industry since they have high standards for money transfer and safekeeping; currently none of China's big four banks have partnered with P2P lenders for custodian services; smaller banks are getting involved and bank to platform relationships are taking on various forms. Source
Caixin reports that China's relevant regulators will take measures on ICOs; before ICOs are included into the nation's legal framework, it cannot be ruled out that regulators will ban such activities; People's Bank of China and China Securities Regulatory Commission are now discussing the measures. Source (Chinese)
India will be utilizing the world's largest biometrics database, Aadhaar, to implement smart health cards for its senior citizens; senior citizens will be receiving an Aadhaar-based smart card; the cards will include information on their health, healthcare and healthcare history; the Aadhaar smart cards will also have payment processing capabilities; the government will test the use of the Aadhaar smart cards in 15 districts during the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Source
Starting on April 14th consumers in India will be able to use their Aadhaar ID number to make payments; in theory this could replace payment services like PayTM and debit and credit cards; the Aadhaar Payments System (APS) will allow consumers to use their fingerprints to complete a transaction so long as they have an APS linked bank account; the system is not without drawbacks as there are privacy concerns and the entire system is based around data protection; this does fit in with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to a cashless society, though it remains to be seen how everyday consumers will utilize it. Source