Displaying items by tag: online finance

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.

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

With Bitcoin recently hitting an all- time high of $14,000 USD on December 7th 2017, many have been asking questions about whether the cryptocurrency’s price will continue to rise in the future or if it is simply a speculative bubble waiting to burst. The currency has risen by over $13,000 USD since the 1st of January 2017, a remarkable, and for some unfathomable surge considering it has no tangible assets or value at its core.

Published in Asia Payments Research

Since Chinese online micro lending companies Qudian and Paipai Dai have gone public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the government has been closely following the development of the micro-credit industry. Scrutiny has fallen not only their business model but also on their high revenue, which specifically caught people’s eyes. The Ningbo Jinzhou Financial Office already shut down two micro lending institutions. On November 21, 2017, the General Office of the State Council issued an urgent notice on suspending approval on the establishment of internet small loan companies. With the arising attention around financial risks, could this be the end of the industry? 

Published in China Banking 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

Qudian lnc, the Chinese micro lending company, has filed for a U.S. IPO at the NYSE earlier last month. It plans to raise up to USD $750 million in capital to spend on strategic acquisitions, marketing and borrower engagement. In only a few years, Qudian has become an eye catching internet lending company with a valuation of over $6.9 billion USD. Qudian’s remarkable success in such a short period of time, shows how profitable the cash loan market can be, as well as the incredible opportunities for transformation that can arise when collaborating with internet giants like Alibaba. 

As part of our China Fintech initiative, we brought a group of Chinese executives to Singapore for the Fintech Festival and a number of company visits. The 17 fintech executives from some of China's largest P2P lenders, consumer finance groups and digital payments platforms were part of the group. 

Published in Asia Banking Research

The big data e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba is now eager to leverage their data on millions of users and transactions in new projects. This time they have followed their formidable rival JD.com by moving into the crowdfunding area to extend financing to SMEs.

Published in China Banking Research

Want to unload that bad debt on your books? Now you can on Taobao. Cinda Asset Management, one of China’s Big 4 state-owned bad asset managers, has partnered with Taobao to sell RMB 4 billion-worth of creditor’s rights on the e-commerce company's asset disposal platform. This is seen as another potentially very successful cooperation between finance and internet industries as a large asset owner will have access to many new buyers through Taobao’s powerful channel.

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