Displaying items by tag: ecommerce

On April 7th, 2018, Alibaba announced an investment of 4.5 billion RMB (7.1 bn USD) to Huitongda, showing the intention to develop business in the rural areas of China. They will cooperate on supply source, logistics, technology and life services.

With the craze surrounding Bitcoin, many are concerned that the crypotcurrency’s price is over valued and a result of too much hype. However, Blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin, is captivating the attention of many and is widely regarded as the future of technology. So much so in fact, many countries have already launched or begun looking into the possibility of creating their own Blockchain based, state sponsored cryptocurrencies.

Published in Blockchain Research

In the venture capital industry, a ‘unicorn’ refers to any technology start-up company which has reached a valuation of over USD $1 billion, as determined by private or public investment. The term was devised by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, founder of CowboyVC, a venture capital fund based in Palo Alto. She discovered that only 0.07% of software start-ups founded in the 2000s would ever reach a $1bn valuation, thereby being as rare as finding a unicorn.

It is quite obvious that Alipay is the largest mobile payments platform in the world, with approximately 400 million registered users. Third-party payment platforms play an integral role in Chinese consumers’ everyday transactions because of the multi-faceted services offered, such as ecommerce and mobile payment transactions.

According to iResearch data released in September 2014, the Gross Monetary Value of China’s third-party online payments reached 1,840.66 billion Yuan (USD $299 billion), with year on year growth of 64.1%.

Published in Asia Payments Research

Hike messenger, a popular phone messaging service app in India, has recently decided to introduce payment services on its platform. 

For nearly 30 years, India’s double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA) with Mauritius came in handy for investors to route money through ‘shell’ companies based out of the island nation. These investors saved on capital gains tax liabilities in Mauritius which does not impose these taxes on off-shore entities. A similar treaty exists with Singapore. As a consequence, India receives half of its FDI from just two countries: Mauritius (34%) and Singapore (16%).

Published in India Banking Research

The financial services sector in India is at it again; at least the regulators and the mainstream business publications are. Talking up UPI (Unified Payments Interface) as a panacea for India’s challenges with financial inclusion, cash economy (read black money), plateauing digital ecosystem and you name it. 

After a lull in investments and a lacklustre IPO, the Indian ecommerce market is heating up once again. While China-based Alibaba had earlier invested in Snapdeal (ranked #2 in India by market share) and Paytm, it recently announced a direct foray into the Indian market, making the entire ecommerce sector sit up and take notice. Now Japan’s Rakuten seems set to follow suit into India.

Ecommerce major Flipkart’s acquisition of UPI based startup PhonePe Internet Pvt Ltd shows that the payment space is heating up at a rapid pace. Incidentally PhonePe, the Bengaluru based startup was launched by three former Flipkart executives just four months back, and is focusing on peer to peer payments, bill payment and merchant payments- areas of interest for ecommerce companies.

Earlier this week the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) came out with guidelines allowing for 100 percent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in online retail of goods and services.