TNG FinTech Group Inc. is close to closing a Series A funding deal that will add $60 million in new capital for the firm and bring its valuation to $500 million; the firm offers global money transfers, foreign-exchange transactions and bill payments; following the funding round it will be one of the highest valued fintechs in Hong Kong; it plans to use the funding to expand its business internationally through acquisition of companies with remittance licenses in Singapore, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and the UK. Source
News Roundup
This page contains an archive of the Global Newsletter summaries and the weekly fintech news roundups.
Every day the Fintech Nexus news team scours the globe for the most important stories of the day to include in our daily newsletter.
Then every Saturday we bring you our weekly news roundup of the top 10 fintech stories of the week with commentary from Peter Renton.
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Hexindai sees credit market opportunity in China worth 10 trillion RMB ($1.46 trillion); provides insight on the market in their featured blog post; with high net worth clients primarily served by traditional channels the firm is targeting the country's underserved population; says new and evolving technologies will be a factor helping emerging service platforms like P2P online lending gain market share. Sponsored Blog Post
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Bryan Kirschner, Vice President...
In an article from The Financial Brand they highlight the opportunity for banks and credit unions as millennials reach adulthood, warning that failing to crack the "millennial code" of what makes millennials unique may be fatal to lending opportunities; there are many promising statistics including an estimated 86 million potential millennial customers; according to the US Census Bureau, by 2028 millennials will become the majority of peak and legacy profit groups. Source
Online lender Avant was one company greatly affected by the industry's challenges in 2016; in May it laid off 60 workers with further reductions in July; it also paused its plans to expand into Australia and offer new auto loans and credit cards; a new partnership with Regions Bank has helped revive the company's growth and it also plans to announce another partnership in February; the new business activity has helped it to begin hiring again and it's currently looking for 25 technologists and some additional customer service support; in 2017 Avant's President, Adam Hughes, says the firm will focus on three main initiatives: growing Avant's core lending product, partnering with more brick-and-mortar banks and launching the credit card product; it also has plans to continue its previous initiatives including Australia expansion and auto loans. Source
According to The Times, sources say Funding Circle is in no hurry to do an IPO, but if the markets continue to be favorable they may go public in the second half of the year; article also shares the potential in their US business where they have much less brand awareness compared to the UK; there are some concerns from clients and investors that the company has not yet been through a recession as they look at an IPO; Funding Circle currently has 850 employees and last raised £82 million at a £990 million valuation. Source
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TransferWise is the first fintech to join the Bank of England’s Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system; described as game changing for the company the deal will allow them to lower costs, be on equal footing as banks and offer instant transfers to GBP. Source.
EEO.com has exposed 13 board member candidates of Wanglian (or Nets Union), China's newly established centralized clearinghouse for third party payments: Lai Zhiming (Tencent VP), Wang Zuogang (Alipay Director) and Ma Ji (JD Finance VP) are on the list, among other executives from People's Bank of China and its affiliated organizations. Source (Chinese)
Credit card start-up Tribal Credit secures $5.5m in seed funding Exclusive: Unite...