Asia

August 10, 2018 @ 9:21 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Scottish crowdfunded brewery BrewDog announced earlier this week it has continued its global expansion with the launch of its first bar in Seoul, South Korea. According to the brewery, this new bar is located in the Itaewon region of the city. BrewDog reported that the Itaewon bar will… Read More

August 10, 2018 @ 9:19 am By JD Alois  |  

Zilliqa has landed former Head of Marketing APAC for Google Pay Yiling Ding as their new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Ding, who is said to be fluent in English, Japanese, and Chinese Mandarin, has spent the past four years with Google. During her stint with Google she… Read More

August 10, 2018 @ 8:59 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

InstaReM, a Southeast Asia’s digital cross-border money transfer service provider, announced on Friday it has appointed Nilesh Pathak as its new Chief Technology Officer. Pathak will reportedly lead the company’s technology team, divided between India and Lithuania, driving the firm’s technology strategy, architecture, development as… Read More

August 10, 2018 @ 8:51 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Hexindai (NASDAQ:HX), a China-based peer to peer lender, announced on Friday it has further strengthened its risk control system to better protect investors throughout the entire process of borrower acquisition, risk-based pricing, post-loan management, and default risk coverage through its new comprehensive, stable and efficient asset… Read More

August 9, 2018 @ 11:56 am By JD Alois  |  

Another day, another crypto hack. About two weeks ago, KICKICO revealed that 70 million KICK tokens had been pilfered by a hacker at a value of around $7.7 million – peanuts in the ICO hacking space. On July 26th, KICKICO said the security breach had… Read More

August 9, 2018 @ 8:56 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

India-based mobile wallet service provider Paytm announced on Wednesday it has acquired management startup Balance.Tech. Founded in 2010, Paytm claims to be India’s largest mobile payment and commerce platform. It offers a full marketplace for consumers through its mobile apps. The company’s investors include investors include… Read More

August 8, 2018 @ 9:33 am By Cali Haan  |  

Relatively loose Japanese laws designed to facilitate the use of cryptocurrencies at the retail level will soon be revised to reflect their actual use as speculative investments, Japan Times reports. Initial laws enshrined in April 2017 made Japan was one of the first powerhouse economies… Read More

August 7, 2018 @ 10:22 pm By Cali Haan  |  

A Japanese bank that allegedly allowed notorious failing cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox to continue accepting deposits while simultaneously freezing withdrawals is once again appealing a ruling that allowed a class action suit to proceed against the bank in the US, Finance Feeds reports. The bank,… Read More

August 7, 2018 @ 1:30 pm By JD Alois  |  

Klook, short for “Keep Looking,” has raised $200 million in a Series D funding round led by big name global VCs. Klook is a travel activity and services booking firm that is reportedly on track to generate over $1 billion in bookings during 2018. The… Read More

August 6, 2018 @ 10:24 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Investors alleging that the CEO of Sky Mining, Le Minh Tam, defrauded them of $36 million dollars are continuing their fight for restitution, this time in the form of a petition at Change.org. The petition lists Tam’s passport number and claims he solicited contributions of… Read More

August 6, 2018 @ 12:13 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Bitmain, the world’s largest manufacturer of crypto mining equipment and its biggest producer of bitcoins has announced the launch of a $500-million data centre in Rockdale, Texas. The company says it will deploy the sum over 7 years and will create 400 local jobs in the… Read More

August 6, 2018 @ 10:34 am By JD Alois  |  

Last Friday, OKEx blogged about a failed whale that posted a huge long position on Bitcoin. The unnamed whale booked an order for 4,168,515 contracts. The Hong Kong digital asset exchange explained the predicament and ensuing action: “The client with user ID 2051247 initiated an… Read More

August 6, 2018 @ 9:02 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Asian general insurer MSIG Insurance announced on Monday it has formed a strategic partnership with global startup accelerator and corporate innovation platform Plug and Play to promote innovation within the general insurance space. MSIG reported it will become a founding anchor partner of Plug and Play’s… Read More

August 6, 2018 @ 1:00 am By JD Alois  |  

OurCrowd Labs/02, a  seed stage incubator and part of Israel based crowdfunding platform OurCrowd, has formed a new partnership with two leading venture capital firms in South Korea: Yozma Group Korea and DTNI. The dual Memoranda of Understandings (MOUs) were signed in early July 2018,… Read More

August 5, 2018 @ 10:36 am By JD Alois  |  

KPMG has published their Pulse of Fintech report highlighting global Fintech activity for the first half of 2018. According to KPMG, global investment in Fintech is going gangbusters as “Fintech market activity worldwide gained momentum during the first half of the year as the geographic… Read More

August 2, 2018 @ 10:42 pm By JD Alois  |  

Infoteria Corporation, an enterprise software company in Japan (Listed on TSE Sec.1: 3853) and Zilliqa have formed a partnership with Infoteria will enable corporate use of the fast blockchain. Zilliqa is one of a handful of companies seeking to address current shortcomings in distributed ledger… Read More

August 2, 2018 @ 3:00 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Orig3n, Inc., a Boston-based biotech company and Chinese insurtech ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co., Ltd. (6060.HK), announced earlier this week they have formed a partnership to bring health tech solutions to Chinese consumers. According to Orign3n, ZhongAn will now supplement its insurance offerings with the… Read More

August 2, 2018 @ 2:04 pm By JD Alois  |  

China based Fintech CreditEase has invested in Blast, a California based startup that is the mobile gamification space led by Acorns founder and Chairman, Walter Cruttenden. The investment was facilitated via CreditEast Fintech Investment Fund (CEFIF) – a US $1 billion fund. Other investors in… Read More

August 2, 2018 @ 7:09 am By Erin Hobey  |  

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has directed Lendingstar Malaysia Sdn Bhd to cease all its activities, pronto, effective today. The SC directive was initially issued on 23 July 2018 after an inquiry found that Lendingstar is not registered to operate a recognized market and is providing… Read More

August 1, 2018 @ 8:25 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) announced on Tuesday the eight fintech companies that have been selected for the fifth annual FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific 12-week mentorship program. According to Accenture, the 2018 program received a record number of applications from more than 160 companies. Accenture reported that… Read More