Displaying items by tag: services

China's recent outbound M&A has been suffering with more and more acquisitions failing due to national security concerns, Ant Financial's missed acquisition of MoneyGram being the latest. Why does national security factor into these decisions and why will it remain a crucial consideration in the future?

On December 11th, 2017, China Union Pay (CUP), together with over 30 commercial banks and payment institutions, launched a new version of its mobile payment APP, QuickPass (云闪付), starting a new battle in the mobile payment industry.

Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay are set to link their national digital payment systems, thereby making it easier to send money between the two countries.

Published in Asia Payments Research

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

The Financial services sector is integrating AI (artificial intelligence), machine learning and predictive analytics at a remarkable rate for both customer-facing and back-end operations. One element commonly associated with AI, but one that has not yet made a strong impact, are ‘chatbots,’ computer programs designed to simulate conversation with human users. However, this could be about to change, with large financial institutions starting to experiment and launch products leveraging AI technology.

Published in Asia Banking Research

China’s fintech sector has enjoyed significant development, but has recently been constrained by more active regulators who have increased their rate of regulation to try and stay ahead of the industry development. After two years of planning and industry development, a public-private body was established by the People's Bank of China - the National Internet Finance Association.

Shanghai based Lufax, one of China’s biggest P2P platforms, has just received a USD 483 million-worth investment from foreign institutional and private investors. Is the investment rearranging deck-chairs on a sinking ship or a clear signal that everything is fine in the troubled P2P industry?

Published in China Banking Research

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) released its annual banking industry statistics for 2014. Banks accumulated RMB 172.3 trillion in assets, up 13.87% since 2013. The Big 5 large commercial banks had a slower growth rate than the joint-stock commercial banks, 8.25% and 16.50% respectively.

Published in China Banking Research

The recent PBOC annual Payments Industry Overview report shows plenty of impressive data and the main message that comes through is that "everything is growing". However, not all growth is the same and the numbers for credit cards industry are especially interesting.

Published in China Banking Research

A couple of days ago, media announced that Alibaba had made a substantial investment in InTime, which is a Hong Kong company that manages mainland China upper-end retail malls. These malls are typically branded InTime, but are multi-brand inside where each brand has a small section and potentially dedicated staff to that section. 

Page 1 of 3