October has been a tough month for China's P2P lending platforms as more and more are pressured to shut down due to capital shortages and fraudulent behaviour.
The digital revolution has finally caught up with the Chinese banking sector. As it undergoes important reforms, industry leaders are faced with numerous challenges and must innovate to stay on top of their game.
Baidu Baifa 100 Index Fund, the first big data-based quantitative strategy fund in China, announced that it was closed for new investors only 24 hours of online sale at 15:00 on October 28th.
According to the latest hardware specifications of bitcoin mining manufacturers, even with it no longer makes sense for individuals to mine on their own - even in China where electricity is somewhat cheaper. Except if they are willing to wait a long time.
Ripple Labs announced partnerships with two U.S. banks, which will allow their customers to make same-day distributed money transfers at a very low-cost. How about partnering with Chinese banks? Could Ripple in China work with banks in a space where Bitcoin in China has struggled?
The recent announcement that there are now 190 million Alipay wallet users has confirmed Alipay as a real heavyweight and innovator within the mobile payments industry. What are the barriers for future growth?
Alibaba and Apple were in the same sentence quite a bit this week as rumours floated about a potential Alipay / Apple Pay tie-up. Beyond a potentially very unique name for a new payment service, what would a potential partnership bring to the table for the companies and consumers?
Like a piece of delicious cake, all good things come to an end and after robust growth since the launch, Yuebao has seen the first decline in 2014Q3. According to the data from financial news website East Money, although Yuebao has achieved 5.69 Billion in net profits, Yuebao AUM has declined 6.84% for the first time, reaching RMB 534.89 Billion. Is this part of a larger trend?
After over a year of incredible growth, Yuebao is starting to slow slightly and the expected returns on the platform are dropping down to about 4%, not entirely different than what is possible in a bank. In April 2014, Alibaba made a decision to roll out a new online finance product, a bankers' acceptance online lending.
Last week, Alibaba’s finance arm rebranded their “Small and Medium Financial Services Company today to “Ant Financial Services Group” or “Ant Financial”.
Bitcoin has seen its reputation in the eyes of the general public drop following various security breaches (i.e. Mt Gox) that have left many uncertain about the digital currency’s legitimacy and future. In addition, people are starting to question if Bitcoin really has a place in the market and if there is actually a problem that it solves – there is almost a malaise in the eyes of many who are getting tired about reading about it. Although Bitcoin might be hitting headwinds, security enhancements are underway and blockchain technology seems to be thriving.
Starting from October 8th China Securities Depository and Clearing will assign a single unified account number to all A-share and closed-end mutual fund account holders. Previously, accounts were separated to the respective Shanghai and Shenzhen branches of the clearing company.
According to the latest SWIFT RMB Tracker, the number of financial institutions adopting the RMB has risen by 35% with global RMB payments tripling in value over the last two years.
Mr. Li Xiaofeng, head of PBoC Financial IC Card Panel, believes that Chinese payment providers will not play a major role in payments in China's financial industry. “From the scale and channel perspective, Central Bank and commercial banks remain the main payment providers.”
Although Alibaba was in the first round of initial approvals to setup a private bank in China earlier this year, it was only at the end of September 2014 that they finally received approval to move forward on the project along with Juneyao, another large Chinese company who is also looking to setup their own bank.