Asia

May 16, 2017 @ 2:01 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

As reported by Forbes today, Alibaba has invested in online invoice exchange marketplace Qupital, marking the Chinese e-commerce giant’s first foray into fintech investment in Hong Kong. Qupital raised a total of $2 million in its seed round. Accounts Receivable Marketplace Qupital bills itself as Hong Kong’s… Read More

May 15, 2017 @ 6:36 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Indonesian P2P lender Taralite announced that it has a raised a US$6.3 million funding round from Japanese fintech conglomerate SBI Group, the valuation of the round was undisclosed, according to multiple news sources. Begun as as a lending platform that finances celebratory events such as weddings and Hajj… Read More

May 14, 2017 @ 11:18 pm By JD Alois  |  

Launched in 2015 with the personal approval from the Chinese President Xi Jinping, Silk Ventures is on a mission is to build the most advanced New ‘Silk Road’ for technology companies seeking to expand to China and for Chinese companies seeking to ‘go global’.  The… Read More

May 14, 2017 @ 11:30 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

According to an article in Bloomberg, Hong Kong-based financial investment and services firm, Sun Hung Kai & Co., intends to expand its principal investments portfolio to over US $2 billion with an emphasis on investing in fintech. The firm currently has about US $1.4 billion… Read More

May 13, 2017 @ 10:00 am By Xu Gao  |  

There May Come the JD Bank JD.com Inc., China’s second-biggest e-commerce player, announced its financial arm was about to launch its own direct bank. After acquiring the banking license, this internet giant announced to cooperate with a domestic traditional bank to open a direct bank,… Read More

May 12, 2017 @ 8:29 am By JD Alois  |  

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has signed a co-operation agreement with the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong. The intent of the agreement is to encourage collaboration that supports Fintech innovation. According to the document, the FCA and SFC will co-operate on information… Read More

May 12, 2017 @ 7:51 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Paytm is now in talks with SoftBank to raise up to $1.9 billion in fresh funding, hiking its value to a cool $8 billion or more, according to multiple new sources. Paytm counts over 218 million wallet users; last month alone Paytm clocked 255 million transactions.  Founded… Read More

May 11, 2017 @ 2:24 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Thursday, peer-to-peer lender China Rapid Finance (NYSE: XRF) that the underwriters of its previously announced initial public offering (IPO) have exercised in full the option to purchase an additional 1.5 million American depositary shares (“ADSs”) from China Rapid Finance to cover over-allotments. According to… Read More

May 11, 2017 @ 3:40 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

According to a recent article on The Cointelegraph, the price of Ether could surge due to activity within China. Similar to Bitcoin, Ether is a cryptocurrency that was developed and offered for sale to the public by Ethereum, a blockchain development platform, back in 2014. The value… Read More

May 9, 2017 @ 12:23 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

Invoice Bazaar, a UAE Fintech supply chain finance platform announced an investment from Shirish Apte, former CEO and Chairman Asia Pacific of Citigroup. Founded last year in Dubai, Invoice Bazaar has now expanded into India and Singapore. “Having seen the business model of many FinTech… Read More

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

Alipay, part of internet conglomerate Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), has launched its payments platform in the US thus challenging other established players in the space such as Apple Pay. Alipay is partnering with First Data (NYSE:FDC) on the US expansion. Frank Bisignano, Chairman and CEO, First Data,… Read More

May 9, 2017 @ 8:07 am By Erin Hobey  |  

One billion dollars. MobiKwik is set to raise funds from investors including BlackRock Inc. which will value the innovative Indian Fintech company at about $1 billion, according to Bloomberg. Headquartered in Gurgaon, MobiKwik offers a mobile phone based payment system. Customers add money to an online wallet that… Read More

May 9, 2017 @ 7:47 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Singapore-based Senjō Group, a leading privately-held payments platform operator and active Fintech investor, has successfully secured a Payment Institution (PI) license in Lithuania, according to news services. The company received permission from the Bank of Lithuania to acquire Lithuanian payment institution Finolita Unio, thereby gaining access to… Read More

May 8, 2017 @ 12:10 pm By JD Alois  |  

Do you remember the Ezubao Ponzi scheme that ended in the single largest peer to peer lending fraud of all time? Investors, saw approximately 50 billion CNY or about USD $7.2 billion flushed down the tube. Reportedly 900,000 investors were impacted as an astounding 95%… Read More

May 7, 2017 @ 4:30 pm By Xu Gao  |  

WeChat Enters the U.S. Market WeChat Pay, one of the biggest mobile payment platforms in mainland China, has boosted its cross-border business by entering the U.S. market. With the backing of China’s largest social networking app WeChat, which now claims more than 889 million monthly… Read More

May 7, 2017 @ 2:43 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Islamic Fintech Alliance (IFT Alliance) has published its inaugural report on the emerging Fintech sector for the Muslim community. According to Umar Munshi, the Chair of the IFT Alliance; “The Islamic Fintech Alliance seeks to actively engage the stakeholders of the Islamic Economy to… Read More

May 5, 2017 @ 1:40 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

China’s Ping An Insurance Group announced on announced on Thursday it has appointed former Citi Global Head of Retail Banking, Jonathan Larsen, as the new Chief Innovation Officer and CEO of Ping An Global Voyager Fund, a new $1 billion fund dedicated to fintech and healthtech…. Read More

May 4, 2017 @ 2:46 am By Cole Lyons  |  

The Fintech firm Acudeen Technologies has beat out its fourteen other competitors at the Seedstars World 2017 pitch competition and came home with the $500,000 grand prize. The Philippines based company wowed the judges with their new approach for assisting startups in their acquisition of… Read More

May 3, 2017 @ 1:55 am By Cole Lyons  |  

The Fintech firm InstaReM has recently entered a partnership with Goldfield Money. The two plan to assist migrants by providing them with banking services, along with serving overseas small and medium sized corporations based in Asia. InstaReM, based in Singapore, and Goldfield Money, which is listed… Read More

May 2, 2017 @ 3:34 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Asian robo-advisory platform-as-a-service provider, WeInvest, announced on Tuesday it has teamed up with global fintech platform InvestCloud to enable its robo-advisory solution, which supports multi-asset based, multi-currency, goal-based, and thematic investing. Speaking about the partnership, Bhaskar Prabhakara, CEO at WeInvest, stated: “The WeInvest PaaS solution gives… Read More