Credy was founded in 2016 and has been gaining some ground in India's P2P lending market; the firm is emerging from the Y Combinator Winter 2017 program and seeks to capitalize on two factors supporting the growth of P2P in India: 1) the use of the Aadhaar ID system and 2) the country's demonetization which eliminated 85% of the country's currency and shifted the economy towards a focus on digital transactions; using digital IDs and a technology platform for underwriting and instant approvals will allow the firm to capitalize on a $50 billion personal lending market; the firm's average loan size varies from $500 to $1,000 with repayment terms up to nine months; led by former Goldman Sachs bankers, the P2P platform has already processed approximately $3 million in loans. Source
Monexo plans to hire 30 to 40 people in a new office in Salt Lake Sector V; company plans to first start with personal loans and has already tied up with CIBIL for credit scores of borrowers; according to Monexo, good borrowers will receive a rate as low as 13%; Monexo has been in operation for 18 months and has offices in Bengaluru and Chennai. Source
India's fintech market is growing with a number of socioeconomic factors driving innovation; in 2016 over $1.6 billion was invested in India's fintech industry; the CEO and founder of India's Rubique highlights three ways the Indian lending space is being disrupted, including insight on blockchain, marketplace lending and robo advisory services. Source
Chinese regulators are considering custodian requirements for bitcoin to help mitigate effects from its market risks; the custodian support appears to be welcomed by platforms and investors in China; overall, Chinese regulators are taking a more active role in bitcoin market activity as Chinese investors increasingly account for a majority of bitcoin's trading volume. Source
Fosun Group has invested in Shanghai Distributed Technologies (SDT); the amount was in the tens of millions of yuan; SDT works on blockchain with financial firms and has a joint venture with the Guiyang city government to develop blockchain-based systems for public services; SDT is a startup behind Onchain, which is founded by Da Hongfei, one of the earliest blockchain participants in China. Source
Investors in China are increasingly looking for an unbiased, lower cost option for managing their wealth; robo advisors are beginning to fill that void; the new firms are helping the non ultra rich access markets and helping the wealthy allocate their money without fear of a broker who is thinking of the corporate firm; though the data on robo advisors in China is currently thin, China Merchants Securities Co. believes that assets managed by robo advisors will reach over $750 billion by 2020. Source
Paytm is looking to expand beyond their Indian roots and Canada is their first test case; “Paytm Canada is our beta test, or our warhead to get an entry into new geography beyond India,” said founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma to TearSheet; while their bill pay products help top build customers their big revenue driver is when businesses pay them fees to accept payments; the current test case in Canada has Paytm signing up thousands of Canadian companies where they incentivize customers to pay bills with cash back offers; having a large Indian population in Canada has helped the company gain early success, but expanding to markets like the US is a different type of challenge. Source.
Nuoyuan Technology is optimistic about financial innovation in China and globally; the firm is growing its business in China and through its subordinate business, Nuoyuan Online Platform, offers a service that connects borrowers with lenders; Nuoyuan Online has now helped to finance over 5 billion RMB and has over 600,000 users; in their featured blog post they discuss the global market for fintech innovation and their expectations for the future. Sponsored Blog Post