Asia

February 25, 2016 @ 5:39 am By Erin Hobey  |  

LoanZen Pvt Ltd, which runs P2P lending marketplace LoanZen, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from angel investors through Tracxn Syndicate, an angel network launched by Tracxn, reported VC Circle’s Nishant Sharma. Offering services in Bangalore, LoanZen provides SMEs with unsecured working capital loans against their pending invoices to MNC/listed… Read More

February 23, 2016 @ 10:09 pm By Midori Yoshimura  |  

    At the Continuum SF Innovation and Credit Conference in San Francisco I recently attended, those present listened to a solid lineup of speakers discuss business development and more in SF and across the Pacific in China. Speakers included SF Mayor Ed Lee; Rob Suber,… Read More

February 21, 2016 @ 3:07 pm By JD Alois  |  

The government crackdown on internet finance, probably best exemplified by the Ezubao collapse and incarceration of the P2P lenders executives, has slowed the growth of the online lending industry.  According to a report in China News, as of January, there were 2771 platforms in operations in… Read More

February 19, 2016 @ 6:07 pm By JD Alois  |  

Thai financial regulators including the SEC and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) are moving forward with supporting Fintech initiatives and equity crowdfunding specifically. Somkid Jatusripitak, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Economic Affairs, recently declared 2016 Thailand’s “Investment Year”, as the southeast Asian country tries… Read More

February 15, 2016 @ 9:33 am By JD Alois  |  

International investment crowdfunding platform FundedByMe has announced a referral program that may provide a finders fee from €2000 to up to €20,000. Other investment crowdfunding platforms have enacted similar programs to the FundedByMe bounty. The launch of the partner program was described as giving the opportunity to… Read More

February 14, 2016 @ 1:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) has launched a website where investors may submit platforms where they have been swindled out of their money. The new site is said to be designed to aid authorities as they investigate dodgy platforms.  The announcement, published in China News,… Read More

February 12, 2016 @ 7:15 am By JD Alois  |  

CoAssets (NSX code: CAX), a Singapore based crowdfunding platform, has announced the appointment of two new directors that will be joining the young company in the coming weeks. CoAssets became a publicly traded company last year establishing itself as the first real estate platform to… Read More

February 12, 2016 @ 7:01 am By JD Alois  |  

Bank Sinarmas, a Jakarta based financial institution, has formed a partnership with recently launched peer to peer lender Modalku to more easily provide access to capital to SMEs joining a global trend of traditional finance partnering with innovative Fintech firms. The partnership with Sinarmas Bank… Read More

February 11, 2016 @ 4:34 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Mumbai-based P2P lending fintech startup, Capzest, has raised $200K in seed funding from LionVentures, a seed investment and innovation platform founded by Anurag Mehrotra founder of LionVentures; Varun Dua, co-founder and CEO of Coverfox; Amit Tambe, former senior partner of Trilegal India and Vikas Jhunjhunwala, a Mumbai-based textile businessman reported VC Circle…. Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 5:43 am By Erin Hobey  |  

UK FinTech firm Hello Soda, headquartered in Manchester, has launched ‘Hello Soda Asia’, its new South East Asian venture. The new FinTech venture which gives the firm a strategic foothold in South East Asia, will operate out of Bangkok, Thailand and Singapore, and will specifically… Read More

February 6, 2016 @ 7:21 pm By JD Alois  |  

Hanwha, one of the largest conglomerate companies in South Korea, has launched a partnership with Dianrong a leading peer to peer lender in China. The as of yet named entity will open an office in Singapore later this month. Hanwha is a Chaebol that formed an technology… Read More

February 5, 2016 @ 8:11 am By JD Alois  |  

Chinese crowdfunding platform KaiStart announced this week they had closed on a Series “A+” funding  round led by Matrix Partners and Vision Capital. At the end of 2015, KaiStart had revealed it had raised $5.2 million from a broad group of investors including; Incapital, Meridian… Read More

February 5, 2016 @ 12:16 am By JD Alois  |  

  Fundnel (pronounced like Funnel) is one of several investment crowdfunding platforms that have launched in Singapore over the past year. But even though there are a growing number of sites entering the internet finance space, Fundnel claims the title of Asia’s first collaborative fundraising platform… Read More

February 4, 2016 @ 6:00 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (FSA), which regulates the banking and non-banking sector, is working with the Ministry of Communications and Information to bring out regulations governing online startup companies offering financial services, popularly referred to as fintech, reported DealStreetAsia. Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest economy (US$890B).  The new regulation will… Read More

February 4, 2016 @ 5:03 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Fintech opportunities are percolating in southeast Asia. Earlier this week, the Silicon-based venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, closed a $920 M fund capital to invest majorly in Indian startups along with South East Asian companies.  With the reserve bank actively studying peer lending, this part of the globe… Read More

February 2, 2016 @ 5:04 am By Erin Hobey  |  

OCBC Bank has launched a fintech co-working space and innovation unit in Singapore and its first accelerator program to identify and collaborate with innovative startups. The 2,400-square foot Open Vault at OCBC has been established to help drive the development of new products and business models… Read More

February 2, 2016 @ 4:44 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Creditnation.in, a lending platform which combines credit advisory, analytics, process automation and last-mile connectivity, has announced that it has raised angel round funding for an undisclosed amount.  The platforms deals primarily in credit cards, loan against property, housing, personal, auto and business loans, and have already partnered… Read More

February 1, 2016 @ 11:21 am By JD Alois  |  

As reported in December, the Chinese peer to peer lender Ezubao (Ezubo), launched by Yucheng in 2014,  was shuttered by authorities as employees were questioned and managers were arrested by police.  Now Xinhua and other news outlets are providing details that are shaking up the… Read More

January 31, 2016 @ 9:47 pm By JD Alois  |  

Banking regulators are said to be establishing a “monitoring and warning system” against financial risk and fraud. This is a according to a report in China News that reported a statement that was released at a conference on political and legal work earlier this month…. Read More

January 30, 2016 @ 7:06 pm By Weiyang Research  |  

By the end of 2015, Kickstarter had launched 274,900 projects, of which 98,500 had successfully reached their fundraising goal. The total contributions added up to $2.147 billion US dollars. 10,101,800 people have been contributors on the Kickstarter platform, of which 3,135,900 were repeat backers. Kickstarter projects… Read More