Asia

April 23, 2015 @ 2:09 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

Peer-to-peer lending startup Jimubox announced that it had secured $84 million in series C funding, just seven months after the Beijing-based firm attracted US$37 million from Xiaomi and ShunWei Capital, according to Tech in Asia. The lead investor on Jimubox’s most recent round is UK’s Investec Bank. Haitong… Read More

April 21, 2015 @ 9:20 am By Erin Hobey  |  

John Tsang, the Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, stated China would be “an ideal place” to develop into a financial technology hub; venture capitalists are increasingly seeing the potential for fintech investment opportunities in Hong Kong, according to a release. Herman Lam, CEO for the creative digital community… Read More

April 19, 2015 @ 11:37 pm By JD Alois  |  

  Former Secretary of Treasury Larry Summers delivered a solid and well received speech at LendIt last week where he criticized the failures of traditional finance while lauding the innovations of internet finance – one that will remove banking from the shadows of the past… Read More

April 19, 2015 @ 10:54 pm By JD Alois  |  

FlyingV may be the largest crowdfunding platform in Asia today.  Based in Taiwan, the platform has led the space in Taiwan, and in many respects Asia general.  Crowdfund Insider interviewed Tim Cheng, CEO of FlyingV, late in 2014 to hear about his viewpoint on the crowdfunding space…. Read More

April 18, 2015 @ 5:37 pm By JD Alois  |  

Peer to peer lender Lufax raised equity late last month. Crowdfund Insider reported the China based direct lender raised approximately $483 million or 3 billion yuan. Now a report in WSJ.com places a valuation of the P2P lender at nearly $10 billion making it one… Read More

April 17, 2015 @ 2:03 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Beijing-based peer-to-peer lender Yirendai.com plans to raise about $300 million in a U.S. initial public offering, notes a recent BloombergBusiness story, citing people with knowledge of the matter. If the IPO takes place, Yirendai could become the first Chinese online-loan platform to list overseas, following the likes of offerings by U.S…. Read More

April 16, 2015 @ 11:30 pm By JD Alois  |  

China is the largest peer to peer lending market in the world today and is home to the largest platforms in the world as well.  While exact estimates vary, most followers put the number of China based P2P lending platforms at an incredible number of… Read More

April 15, 2015 @ 10:19 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Setién, an international commodities trading company headquartered in New York City with operations in Mexico, Chile, China, UA, Brazil, Venezuela and India, has patented a process for the production of liquid sugar that generates 30-40% savings on production costs compared to the traditional process for obtaining liquid… Read More

April 15, 2015 @ 9:03 am By Erin Hobey  |  

The Singapore-based peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform Capital Match which targets Singapore SMEs obtain loans financed by individual investors has launched. The company stated that its are two-fold, to provide business borrowers with the next best interest rates after banks and to give investors access to an attractive yield… Read More

April 12, 2015 @ 4:44 pm By JD Alois  |  

CreditEase, a China based peer to peer lender and wealth management company, has partnered with US based Wellington Management to invest in pre-IPO stage companies, according to a report in the China Daily. The agreement is described as one where CreditEase will provide the capital… Read More

April 12, 2015 @ 11:26 am By JD Alois  |  

The Securities Commission Malaysia has opened the application process for prospective investment crowdfunding platforms according to a statement from the regulatory entity. Malaysia has been one of the more proactive countries in the Asian region to push forward with researching the crowdfunding space and moving forward… Read More

April 9, 2015 @ 4:19 pm By JD Alois  |  

According to Guan Jianzhong of Dagong Global, a company that monitors and rates peer to peer lending platforms, of the 1,587 p2p platforms it observes, 393 have been blacklisted and an additional 668 were given risk warnings – a staggering percentage of active peer lenders in… Read More

April 7, 2015 @ 4:28 pm By JD Alois  |  

AssetAvenue, a debt based real estate crowdfunding platform, has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round led by DCM Ventures. Founded in 2013, this significant funding will dramatically boost AssetAvenue’s growth as it invests in technology and product development.  The funding is indicative of… Read More

April 3, 2015 @ 10:45 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Yodlee Interactive, a unit of Yodlee  which powers financial innovation by providing its APIs to developers, entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 innovators, announced its business has grown significantly in Australia and New Zealand in 2014. This traction demonstrates financial technology as a global burgeoning space, with businesses and… Read More

April 3, 2015 @ 10:16 am By Erin Hobey  |  

OurCrowd has invested in Global Kinetics Corporation (GKC), an Australian medical IT company that has developed and is selling a proprietary tracking and analysis technology improving the management of Parkinson’s Disease (PD).  The campaign is set to close on 10 April, 2015. GKC was established in 2007 to commercialize innovative… Read More

April 3, 2015 @ 6:19 am By JD Alois  |  

Peer to peer lending platform Lufax has sold equity in the company valued at  3 billion yuan or approximately USD 483 million.  This is according to a report in China News that quoted Lufax Chairman Gregory Gibb on the transaction.  The private placement was said… Read More

April 2, 2015 @ 9:52 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek and money manager BlackRock are set to buy stakes in Funding Circle in deals that could value the British peer-to-peer lending platform at more than $1 billion, reported Sky News today. Temasek plans to invest about 30 million pounds ($44.4 million)… Read More

April 1, 2015 @ 10:12 am By Erin Hobey  |  

JD.com, Inc. (Nasdaq:JD), China’s leading online direct sales company, today announced its launch of a series of initiatives to help finance, develop and promote the creation of start-ups in China. The new JD Equity Crowdfunding platform, which builds upon JD.com’s success in the area of Internet finance, is expected to… Read More

March 31, 2015 @ 1:07 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

Report Forecasts Total Global Crowdfunding to Reach $34.4 Billion in 2015 North America Remaining the Largest Market and Asia, Outpacing Europe in 2014, in Second Place As crowdfunding accelerates at an unprecedented rate, its impacting government policy, informing enterprise innovation and changing the role of… Read More

March 30, 2015 @ 10:02 am By Erin Hobey  |  

The Chinese government announced the establishment of the Steering Group on Financial Technologies to advise the Government on how to develop Hong Kong into and promote Hong Kong as a Fintech hub. The initiative to set up the Steering Committee was announced in the Financial… Read More