Asia

June 14, 2017 @ 10:29 pm By JD Alois  |  

Fintech leaders in Australia have announced a week long Fintech festival scheduled to take place at the end of November. The goal is to boost Asia-Pacific Fintech growth Australian festival to drive Asia-Pacific fintech growth. The festival will be held in Melbourne and is predicted… Read More

June 13, 2017 @ 12:30 pm By Therese Torris  |  

This article highlights three takeaways for Fintech firms from Mary Meeker’s 355-page-long report: 1) The Internet’s center of gravity shifts to Asia; 2) The biggest get bigger; 3) Fintechs must use gamification to improve customer engagement. Since 2001, Mary Meeker, a Partner at venture capital… Read More

June 13, 2017 @ 5:04 am By Erin Hobey  |  

India-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Indian mobile wallet platform MobiKwik have synced to develop BSNL’s mobile application, according to a release. MobiKwik will co-create BSNL wallet, a new semi-closed wallet to facilitate payment and also sell BSNL products. “We are proud to associate with BSNL in… Read More

June 12, 2017 @ 2:45 pm By JD Alois  |  

Alibaba has been a trailblazer in many ways. One area that Alibaba wants to dominate is finance for both consumers and SMEs and they are well on their way.  Ant Financial, their financial services subsidiary, is executing on this vision and last week Eric Jing,… Read More

June 12, 2017 @ 4:10 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Increasingly cross national investment in fintech is becoming the norm.  As an example, today Bengaluru-based P2P lender lender LoanMeet has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Chinese entrepreneur-turned-investors Cao Yibin and Huang Wei, along with KrazyBee.com co-founder and CEO Madhusudan E, according to multiple new… Read More

June 11, 2017 @ 10:08 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA) is out with a report on the evolving Fintech sector and the authors are prodding regulators to work more closely together in a regional approach. ASIFMA is based in Hong Kong and while Hong Kong is… Read More

June 11, 2017 @ 9:05 am By Cole Lyons  |  

Kasikorn Bank has opened up a $30 million fund to invest in to Fintech startups, thus exemplifying the banks attitude to embrace disruptive technologies. The rapid technological developments within the financial industry has opened up new dimensions in the market, changing how customers think. People… Read More

June 10, 2017 @ 4:00 pm By Xu Gao  |  

Tsinghua PBCSF Global Finance Forum (2017) convened in Beijing On June 3, 2017 Tsinghua PBCSF Global Finance Forum, which was hosted by Tsinghua University, and organized jointly by the Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance (PBCSF) and Tsinghua University National Institute of Financial Research (NIFR),… Read More

June 10, 2017 @ 10:15 am By Cole Lyons  |  

Sepaking at the recent WSJ D.Live Asia event in Hong Kong, Ping An CIO Jonathan Larsen said Ping An is launching a new fund to invest in early stage Fintech ranging from $10 million to $30 million, according to a report from Dow Jones (here)…. Read More

June 9, 2017 @ 12:10 pm By JD Alois  |  

Flipkart, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in India sales topping $2 billion each year, is getting into Fintech. Just like all other e-commerce platforms the combination of providing credit to customers is just too compelling of a business to pass up. Flipkart states that… Read More

June 9, 2017 @ 8:59 am By JD Alois  |  

  The Monetary  Authority of Singapore (MAS) has inked another Fintech agreement. This time MAS as signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Association of Supervisors of Banks of the Americas (ASBA). The ASBA helps to develop and promote bank supervisory practices throughout the… Read More

June 8, 2017 @ 1:45 pm By JD Alois  |  

Norman Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), visited the Office of Financial Development Service, the People’s Government of Shenzhen Municipality (OFDS) last week to “keep abreast of the applications and latest developments of fintech in Shenzhen.” The meeting was also an… Read More

June 8, 2017 @ 6:54 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Thailand’s Kasikorn Bank has launched a $30 million fintech fund to invest in startups across South East Asia as well as Europe and China. The KBank Beacon fund aims to undertake up to five deals per year, with investments ranging from $500,000 to $3 million, according… Read More

June 8, 2017 @ 1:25 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

According to a recent article on Trustnodes, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore’s central bank, has successfully digitized their national currency by a creating a token out of the Singapore dollar on Ethereum’s blockchain technology. Phase 1 Complete Last November, MAS announced Project Ubin: a… Read More

June 7, 2017 @ 9:48 pm By Cole Lyons  |  

CreditEase, a China based peer to peer lender and wealth management platform, has announced its plans to open a new office in the Asia Square Tower in Singapore. The CEO of CreditEase, Ning Tang, said at the opening ceremony: “After 11 years of development, CreditEase… Read More

June 7, 2017 @ 2:07 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has published a consultation on the regulation of Robo-Advisors or “Digital Advisory Services.” The consultation will close on July 7, 2017. The MAS proposal seeks to support innovation in financial services by recognising the unique characteristics of digital platforms…. Read More

June 7, 2017 @ 7:06 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

Yao Qian, the Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Department at the People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank, recently authored an extensive report on digital currencies. In the report, Yao Qian highlights many of the advantages and disadvantages of digital currencies, focusing much… Read More

June 7, 2017 @ 1:01 am By JD Alois  |  

OurCrowd, a global leader in equity crowdfunding, has signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Reliance Private Client, part of Reliance Capital, one of India’s leading wealth management companies. Reliance Group, the parent company, is amongst India’s leading business houses with over 250 million customers. Reliance Capital… Read More

June 6, 2017 @ 8:09 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

According to an article published on Bloomberg, the increased frenzy over bitcoin in Japan is causing some spill-over effects on some of the country’s small-cap stock market companies. The companies being affected are all related to bitcoin in some way and, as the article speculates,… Read More

June 6, 2017 @ 7:20 am By JD Alois  |  

Last week, KPMG held a press conference in Beijing to announce the selection and ranking of the top 50 Fintech companies in China for 2017. China is the largest Fintech market in the world led by conglomerates like Alibabay (Alipay, Ant Financial etc.), Tencent and… Read More