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Fintech

·Nov. 8, 2017

China Central Bank Looks to Regulate Fintech Companies Like Banks

Sizable fintech companies should face the same regulator scrutiny as banks according to China’s Central Bank; this follows what the PBOC said in August, that internet finance companies should be included in the Macro Prudential Assessment framework which was designed for banks; having banks and fintech companies operate under the same rules could streamline regulation. Source.

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Fintech News Roundup

·Nov. 21, 2017

China CITIC Bank and Baidu Announce Banking Joint Venture

China CITIC Bank and Baidu announced the creation of AiBank as they look to take advantage of the innovating China fintech market; the bank will provide lending services to consumer and SMBs, be comprised of 60 percent tech workers and leverage big data and AI; “AiBank is the future of intelligent finance … It is an institution that understands customers best and understands finance best,” noted Baidu’s COO, Qi Lu. Source.

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Asia/Pac Fintech News Roundup

·Apr. 26, 2017

China Committed to Tightening Regulatory Controls

Shanghai Securities News reported on market statistics and a continued commitment by Chinese authorities this week to manage fraudulent financing activities in the country; 5,197 new criminal cases were reported in 2016 involving 251.1 billion yuan ($36.5 billion); Yang Yuzhu, a Chinese regulatory director involved with a meeting of regulators, says, "The cases severely destroyed the order of financial markets."; in 2016 China approved the arrest of over 9,000 people on suspicion of illegal solicitation of public deposits and it prosecuted over 14,000; regulators plan to continue with enforcement action; they are also considering prohibiting organizations and individuals from publishing investment-related advertisements and are requesting provincial governments to closely examine potential illegal funding activities from May to July. Source

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Fintech News Roundup

·Nov. 10, 2017

China Construction Bank Digitally Transforms

To continue a global expansion of the bank they needed to remodel it around technology; they needed to transform to handle the customer base, which currently stands at over 660 million, more effectively; increasing bandwidth has been a main focus according to China Construction Bank’s CIO Jin Panshi, “We don’t just need bandwidth for 4K or HD video, but we also felt that AI capabilities, including voice and facial recognition, were urgently needed.”; they have also migrated about 83 percent of distributed applications to the cloud and continue to keep innovating to try and stay ahead. Source.

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Fintech News Roundup

·Apr. 19, 2018

China Construction Bank Opens Up a Tech Only Branch

China Construction Bank opened a branch in Shanghai only using technology; they have no human staff and instead use facial recognition, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to provide services; this is the first of its kind in China and the bank says it can handle 90 percent of transactions. Source.

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Fintech News Roundup

·Sep. 27, 2017

China Construction Bank Partners IBM for Blockchain ‘Bancassurance’ Solution

China Construction Bank is working with IBM to develop blockchain-enabled “bancassurance” platform for its retail and commercial banking arm in Hong Kong; A ‘bancassurance’ endeavor typically sees sales of insurance products through banks; the blockchain platform, which is expected to launch in Q3 2017, is currently in its testing phase between China Construction Bank (Asia) and its insurance providers and their clients. Source

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Fintech News Roundup

·Sep. 26, 2017

China Construction Bank to Launch Blockchain Product

Considered part of the 'Big Four' banks in China, the China Construction Bank (CCB) is looking to launch a banking and insurance blockchain product; their hoping to use their new bancassurance product in Q3 to sell third-party insurance products on the distributed ledger as CoinDesk reports; they are using the IBM blockchain and have been testing the products for months. Source.

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Asia/Pac Fintech News Roundup

·Dec. 20, 2016

China Continues to Lead in Fintech for Asia and Globally

Asia fintech specialist Henri Arslanian from PricewaterhouseCoopers provides insight on Asia's fintech market; innovation and rapid adoption are factors that have helped China to be a global leader in fintech; support from Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent continue to be drivers of infrastructure growth; in Asia, demonetization and the India Stack project, which includes biometric data for consumers, are also increasingly helping the region's fintech growth; regtech is also an increasingly important trend across the region. Source

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Asia/Pac Fintech News Roundup

·Aug. 7, 2017

China Disrupted – How Fintech is Changing the Way That 1.5 Billion People Bank

At LendIt USA 2017, Lang Di CEO Gabriel Hai hosted a panel themed how fintechs are changing the way that Chinese people bank; one approach is to use big data technology to reach the individual credit market; panelists agree that China's fintech platforms are more willing to cooperate with traditional banks, as the banks have a more friendly regulatory environment and sufficient cheap money, whilst platforms are at advantages of bringing new technologies to the cooperation; however, Zhou Xinming, CEO of Hexindai, pointed out that China's fintech companies' customer base is more of individual investors rather than institutional investors, and the former are still not financially sophisticated. Source

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Asia/Pac Fintech News Roundup

·Jan. 3, 2017

China Driving Up Bitcoin’s Value

Bitcoin reported substantial gains in 2016, increasing 120% and 57% in the last three months of the year; on January 1 the cryptocurrency exchange rate versus the dollar increased to over $1,000; equity strategist, Christopher Wood of CLSA notes that trading in China has concurrently been high with trading on the China BTC Bitcoin Exchange increasing from Rmb 1 billion ($140 million) in September to Rmb 27.8 billion ($4 billion) in December; in an article from Asia Times, the source also reported that China accounted for 42% of Bitcoin's trading in the first six months of 2016; one factor significantly affecting the increased trading volume has been the weakening of China's currency causing increased interest in foreign investments. Source

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