Global Times recently comments on China's unregulated internet finance sector, stating that the online finance market requires cooling through tighter regulation after years of explosive but unruly growth; due to the lack of regulation, internet finance is often associated with financial irregularities, with many players operating without obtaining any license, for one; Global Times believes only a regulated internet finance industry can serve the real economy, and that chaotic development of internet finance will only pose risks to the country's financial stability. Source
At a financial forum in Shanghai, Jack Ma of Alibaba expressed his support for fintech innovation in digital banking that could further help China's inclusive finance efforts; the holding company founder's comments were centered around the capabilities of its affiliate Ant Financial, which offers a range of digital banking services; Jack Ma said capabilities from the platform could help other fintech firms to increase their financial inclusion business efforts; "We would like to entirely share with partners our capability of data collection and data processing to jointly develop the inclusive financial system," said Jack Ma; as a proponent for financial inclusion and fintech industry growth Jack Ma also said Ant Financial was a leading fintech market platform capable of partnering with other fintech companies for overall industry expansion. Source
Money360-affiliate M360 Advisors has registered with the South Korea Financial Supervisory Service; the registration allows institutional investors from South Korea to invest in the firm's real estate fund; the fund invests in secured US commercial real estate properties through bridge loans and offers global investors a high yield fixed income alternative; the fund has already received $65 million from a South Korean institutional investor and is planning for investment of $250 million in the first half of 2017; the fund is managed to provide international tax efficient investing along with high yield fixed income returns and has a number of other foreign investors including investors in China, Singapore, South Africa, Europe, Canada, the Netherlands and Kuwait. Source
The China market is bigger than the US and they tend to move much faster; Emmanuel Daniel of The Asian Banker compares China today to 1971-1984 in the US when regulation was just beginning to be put in place; Credit China is an example of a successful P2P lender in China, now valued at $3 billion; Yew Kiat Phang speaks about the company, sharing how they initially were a traditional lender, constrained by capital and customers with single revenue streams; the company took a broad approach to fintech, first obtaining a third party payment license; company reported $12 billion in 2016 on their P2P lending platform; their payment gateway saw $30 billion in flow for 2016; Yew Kiat Phang shares other details on the company in the video. Source
The National Internet Finance Association has announced the establishment of a P2P Finance Association; the Association will be led by the People's Bank of China, China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission; the Association will seek to improve the industry and promote its development. Source
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OpenTap has begun to offer marketplace loans in India targeting low to middle income consumers; company seeks to meet the market demand for borrowers who are creditworthy yet don't qualify for traditional loans; estimates the target market for low to middle income consumers at 12,000; loans will be available for up to Rs 50,000 ($730); average loan size has been approximately Rs 25,000 ($365). Source
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Cryptocurrency platform Omega One was this year's PitchIt @ Lang Di winner; the company operates an automated trade execution platform with trading services for traders, investors and institutions seeking to trade globally across the world's crypto exchanges; in comments on Omega One, LendIt Co-Founder Jason Jones said, "Omega One opens the market to the next wave of capital from institutional investors by providing much needed transparency and liquidity."; among the prize winnings for the firm include a RMB1 million ($150,148) investment from JadeValue, co-working space for six months and two tickets to LendIt USA 2018. Source