The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently published their draft framework for a fintech regulatory sandbox; this will enable Indian...
New York-based ConsenSys has been elected to advise the City of Dubai on the first ever blockchain city technology effort; the initiative is led by the Smart Dubai Office and IBM, the government's strategic partner; as part of the Dubai Blockchain Strategy 2020, the city of Dubai will now require all government records and transactions to be documented using blockchain technology. Source
The Cosun Group has told investors it will be defaulting on $45 million worth of corporate bonds issued to investors through online platform Zhao Cai Bao; the online platform is run by Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate of China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.; the bonds should be insured by Zheshang Property and Casualty Insurance Co. Ltd. however China Guangfa Bank is claiming the insured documents are fake; Ant Financial is working to help investors receive the insurance payouts for the bonds and says Zheshang Insurance has no reason to refuse payment which should have been made within three days of default. Source
CredifX will add to the firm's data services which provide data on over two million US commercial properties and $13 trillion in loans; the CredifX platform will offer a marketplace for commercial loans, providing access to financing and investing for commercial real estate borrowers, brokers and lenders; the new commercial real estate loan platform is expected to increase market competition and pricing for loans. Source
Credit China Fintech is forming a consortium to acquire a 36.58% equity interest in Ping An Securities Group (Holdings) Limited; upon completion the consortium intends to make a cash offer for all of the issued shares of Ping An Securities; Credit China Fintech's CEO Phang Yew Kiat says, "Ping An Securities' product offerings are valuable resources that we believe will generate significant synergies with our existing businesses." Source
Credit China Fintech plans to expand its investments in peer-to-peer lending and payment companies; it invests in companies in the fintech industry and has recently invested in Ping An Securities Group Holdings Ltd. and blockchain technology firm BitFury Group Ltd.; recent investments have caused some scrutiny from short seller Anonymous Analytics which negatively affected the stock price in December 2016; the firm's stock price has regained its value since then with a current market capitalization of approximately $3 billion; over the past three years the firm has raised HK$4.3 billion ($554 million) and it plans to acquire at least one more company in the first quarter of 2017. Source
New York-based commercial real estate developer Tishman Speyer has partnered with CreditEase Wealth Management to invest $1.4 billion in China and other countries within the next three years; according to Tang Ning, CreditEase founder and CEO, the partnership will focus on long-term development, providing clients with globalized and diverse portfolios. Source
Chinese fintech company CreditEase has announced it will use Verint Systems, Inc. for customer service; Verint will provide speech analytics, call recording, quality management and customer reporting support services; according to CreditEase, the service provider will help the company reduce operating costs by approximately 45% annually. Source
Ning Tang, founder of CreditEase speaks about 2016 headwinds faced by Yirendai, the company's P2P lending arm; in August, 2016 the stock declined after new rules were put in place by Chinese authorities on P2P lenders; according to Ning Tang, "We need to do more in terms of investor education and communication as most of the international investors do not have a clear understanding of China's credit market and financial innovation."; 2016 transaction volume was 20 billion yuan ($2.92 billion) in 2016; Tang eyes 100 billion yuan ($14.59 billion) by 2020; looking forward, the company plans to form closer relationships with traditional banks to reach offline customers. Source
CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund (CEFIF) announced three investments in new fintech companies at LendIt USA 2017; the investments were a series C round in Trumid, an electronic trading platform for the bond market, series B round in WeConvene, an online corporate access management ERP provider for capital markets, and a seed round in WorldCover, an innovative peer-to-peer insurance network; Anju Patwardhan, senior partner of CEFIF, said: "We believe the Chinese fintech market will continue to grow in 2017 and beyond, as many three to five year-old companies have grown into large-scale operations. We expect many of these to mature into high-quality, mid-to-late stage companies." Source