Barclays recently announced Shelton Shugar as the new CIO of the credit card division; in a Q&A with American Banker, Shugar discusses how they plan to compete in the US payment space and ultimately compete with fintechs; he also talks about the company's cloud computing strategy as well as his perspective on voice recognition and chatbots. Source
Singapore hosted the 3rd Singapore-Shanghai Financial Forum this week helping to strengthen relationships in the region; over 200 participants were in attendance; the theme of the event was "Strengthening Singapore-Shanghai Collaboration in a Changing Financial World Order" and discussions were centered around deepening financial connections between Singapore and Shanghai; Jacqueline Loh, deputy managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, was a featured keynote speaker at the event and spoke about the opportunities for fintech collaboration in the region. Source
Hywin Financial Holding Group has announced the acquisition of UK wealth manager Azure Wealth; Azure Wealth will change its name to Hywin Wealth and operate as a subsidiary of the financial holding company; according to Managing Partner Massimo Scalabrini, "All other management and operational responsibilities as well as our principles, ethos and investment management philosophy remain unchanged."; the acquisition will provide the UK-based firm with wealth management expansion opportunities in Asia; Hywin Financial Holding Group has over 20 wholly-owned and holding subsidiaries with over 100 billion Chinese yuan ($14.53 billion) in assets under management. Source
Chinese startup Niu Jiao Suo is connecting Chinese investors with foreign mutual funds; investors can currently access funds offered by Blackrock, Vanguard, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs; investors are limited by $50,000 per year but can start with as little as $400; interestingly Niu Jiao Suo is not managing its users money and focuses on ensuring users don't exceed the $50,000 limit; according to Crowdfund Insider: "After funds are deposited into a user's account, the money is sent directly to a custodial account managed by DBS Bank. Niu Jiao Suo's primary role is conducting due diligence on the users to make sure they have a clean background and are not US citizens." Source
City A.M. reports on Sydney-based Othera's use of blockchain for improving liquidity in online lending; Othera is a P2P lender; once its loans are made, it has developed a process through blockchain operations that can assign loan portions to tokens that can then be tracked through blockchain operations and sold on an exchange; the firm already uses blockchain for all of its lending operations and has a global patent pending for the tokens. Source
CB Insights reports on first quarter 2017 venture capital deals in their "MoneyTree Report" published in collaboration with PwC; globally, venture capitalists invested $27.1 billion in the first quarter with 2,228 deals; deals and investments increased from the fourth quarter of 2016 and were below the first quarter of 2016. Source
Speaking at the International Fintech Conference hosted by the UK government, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney explained how the Bank of England is looking at the new rise of fintech firms; "Light touch regulation, out-moded codes of market conduct, inadequate settlement and clearing infrastructure all contributed, we can draw on these experiences to help ensure that fintech boosts growth and promotes financial stability," explained Carney; he also pointed out that regulators cannot hamstring innovation as the benefits from fintech should not be stamped out by regulation. Source
Several reports have recently pointed to China as the world's leading country for fintech innovation and adoption; in the first nine months of 2016 over 50% of global fintech investments went to China and the country is reporting the world's four largest fintech unicorns; overall, China has a number of unique factors fueling its fintech growth; some of the main factors include regulatory initiatives and tech savvy underserved consumers and SMEs driving demand; the country is also reporting corporate banks with higher comparative ROEs and greater willingness to invest in digital; additionally, the country's top e-commerce businesses, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, are also significantly influencing fintech growth with growing businesses and investments in payments as well as new technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence; P2P lending is one of fintech's dominant categories with China leading Asia-Pacific market development and reporting 99% of P2P transaction volume, a total value of $101.7 billion in 2015 and over 4,000 P2P lenders. Source
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released its 2016 small business credit survey yesterday and the data shows some bad news for online lenders; big banks, small banks and credit unions all scored higher on the survey than online lenders when it comes to access to capital; one of the more telling pieces of data from the report was that online lenders scored lower than banks on transparency; fintechs did score higher on speed of application and ease of process; not all bad news but still points out the advantage that banks have when it comes to cost of capital. Source
Forbes has released its 30 Under 30 Asia 2017 list of top venture capitalists and fintech entrepreneurs; the list includes fintech entrepreneurs managing P2P lending platforms in India, Philippines, China and South Korea; some of the top entrepreneurs in marketplace lending include Zhang Xiaoliang, cofounder of Beijing Kuaikuai Network Technology, and Wang Zeng, founder of Mujinnong. Source