Recent IPOs by ZhongAn and Qudian, as well as the prospectus by Jianpu could signal a significant rise for IPOs in the next few years; “There will be a new wave of China concept stocks after these two to three years' quietness," said Tiger Brokers research team to China Daily. 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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During the week I share the latest marketplace lending news on Twitter...
- Webinar With Ron Suber: We’re In The Golden Age of FinTech
- Fosun Invests $14.25 Million in Israeli Fintech Startup BondIT
- These two twenty-somethings convinced HSBC to work with their startup — here's how
- SocietyOne lays down the gauntlet to Australia's banking giants
- Goodbye Liens and Judgments - deBanked
- PeerIQ Weekly Industry Update: McKinsey Report on Financial Services Big Tech vs. The Big Banks
An article in Bank Innovation explores whether Google’s mobile expansion points to larger fintech ambitions for the company; their Indian mobile payments app called Tez showed growth in the quarter and many companies are moving to Google Cloud including PayPal; Google also opened a payment API in Brazil and is also focusing on partnerships with retailers and merchants. Source
Though Monzo has seen a share of issues and outages recently the company says the third party marketplace is core to their vision; they also explained it was a key part of their revenue drive and will help to drive down costs per customers in the near future; Monzo have plans to expand product offerings, potentially launch in the US and build out partnerships in the near and mid term future. Source.
Recent news about Chinese online lenders has caused regulators in China to begin looking at new regulations for the industry; “The public has doubts about its operating model and has appealed for it to be brought under regulation,” said Ji Zhihong, head of financial markets department at the People’s Bank of China, according to the FT; the potential regulations could hurt what has become a hot IPO market; Chinese lenders like Qudian who recently did a US based IPO and Paipaidai, Hexindai and Lexin Fintech who all have filed for potential US IPOs. Source.
Only 25 percent of the Chinese population is considered to have a traditional credit score; for non bank lenders gathering alternative data like transactions and social media has helped them to identify potential borrowers who the banks will not serve; Ant Financial has built out Sesame Credit who gathers this type of data and other online lenders have also begun using different data pieces to assess risk. Source.
Bill Miller discusses his $154 million hedge fund MVP 1 and its 30% allocation to bitcoin in a Wall Street Journal article; the fund is up 72.5% this year and according to a letter to investors the fund paid an average price of $350 per bitcoin; while his fund has done well he is aware of the risks that bitcoin could go to zero, providing his perspective in the article. Source
DRW is a firm focusing on trading cryptocurrencies; the Chicago based firm has about a dozen employees working on crypto trading through a subsidiary called Cumberland Mining; there are several other firms operating in this area as well including Jump Trading, DV Trading and Hehmeyer Trading + Investments; volatility in other asset classes is low, making crypto an attractive asset class for these firms. Source
Lend Academy interviews the CEO of BBVA’s new SME online lending initiative called Trustu; Vinacua discusses their innovation centers, how they interact with startups, why they decided to launch a platform, the social underwriting component of the underwriting and more. Source