TruePillars, an Australian SME lender that focuses on individual investors, raised $3.9 million in a series A round; the round was led by a Melbourne-based private investor; "This investment will give us the means to further innovate and build on our service, including our ground-breaking secondary marketplace which allows investors to liquidate their investments ahead of schedule by selling to another investor in real time," says John Baini, TruePillars co-founder and CEO; the company allows for individual investors to fund loans with a $50 minimum commitment per loan. Source
Funding Societies is the first P2P lender to join the International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers (IACPM); the IACPM was established in 2001 and is focused on supporting a community of members in the practice of credit portfolio management; the Association currently has approximately 100 financial institution members. Source
India has become one of the fastest and most diverse fintech markets in the world; at LendIt USA 2017 we hosted a panel featuring leading India fintech firms; panelists talk about what makes the India market unique and what is the size of the opportunity right now; banks have helped to serve the top of the credit pyramid and micro lending has helped to serve the bottom of the credit pyramid, there is a big opportunity in serving the missing middle; panelists focused on how their lending models differ, the differences in the small business and consumer markets and how India has gone from a data scarce country to a data rich country; Aadhaar has also played a key role in helping to get more people and businesses into the financial system; other areas discussed include borrower acquisition channels and leveraging third party data sources. Source
China's State Administrative of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has granted Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) quotas of US$89.9 billion to 132 Chinese mainland financial institutions; the new quotas follow positive investment catalysts including a Hong Kong stock market rally; the new quotas give Chinese asset managers broader freedom for investment in foreign fixed income and equities. Source
The native asset of NEO, formerly known as AntShares, has risen by more than 12,000% in the last seven months, according to figures from Coin Market Cap; NEO comes mostly with similar capabilities vs ethereum, just that NEO's smart contract platform NEO 2.0 supports traditional programming language while ethereum has its own programming language, Solidity; this edge will be crucial to making it a better option over ethereum for running initial coin offerings (ICOs) especially for upcoming Chinese projects. Source
An article in Hacker Noon digs into crypto platform NEO, exploring the company's background, website and white paper; what makes NEO different is that it doesn't have a crypto coin and NEO uses fiat as its internal currency; the NEO coin is similar to a traditional security, functioning as shares in the company that runs the platform. Source
Oliver Wyman has published a report titled "Fintech In China: Hitting The Moving Target"; the report says when it comes to fintech, China could claim to be a world leader in some respects, in spite of an increasing number of voices questioning the health and legitimacy of the fintech business models; Oliver Wyman believes that technological advances, coupled with the unique circumstances of China's financial system, will propel fintech companies to further drive innovation and disrupt the traditional financial services space. Source
The State Council's "Made in China 2025" initiative is seeking to transform China into a greater innovator of technology; the initiative seeks to capitalize on artificial intelligence, big data analytics and robotics and is being designated as a three-step national guideline; along with the initiative the country's State Council has identified 17 national-level innovation demonstration zones that will be allowed favorable policies in order to bolster their respective geographical strengths and support increased regional innovation. Source
Indian digital lender Capital Float is reportedly beginning a fundraising deal that would result in Rs 300 crore ($47 million) of new capital; the round is being led by Ribbit Capital and the firm is expecting a valuation of approximately Rs 1,300 crore ($203 million) following the deal; Capital Float plans to expand its lending portfolio to consumer lending and will also seek to finance kirana stores. Source
Blockchain is causing rapid changes across all industries and specifically financial services; Forbes talks with Da Hongfei, co-founder of blockchain group NEO, about the firm's innovative offerings; it is currently focused on smart contracts which can track the entire process of a contract with transparency and automated alerts for all parties involved; NEO also has a cryptocurrency token that is among the top 10 cryptocurrencies with a market cap of more than $1.4 billion; Forbes also discusses cross border transactions and fraud prevention where NEO is also incorporating digital identity solutions. Source