China has developed a new Chinese village called Yuhuang Shannan which it has designed for the hedge fund community; a quiet village an hour from Shanghai offers a newly designed community tailored to the hedge fund industry with local office space, an elementary and an after work club for financiers; the number of hedge funds has been increasing in China and 1,000 hedge funds and private equity funds are registered in the village with assets under management of approximately 580 billion yuan ($84 billion); it's likely that hedge funds could become more prevalent in China and the village is receiving ongoing support from the government which currently includes a 30% tax bill subsidy. Source
Bank account applicants must now have assets at the bank averaging 5 million yuan ($730,000) per day over the past three months, this threshold is an increase from 50,000 yuan ($7,280); the changes are being enacted to help restrict capital outflows and ease depreciation of the yuan; sources also report that the Bank of China has taken steps to set additional terms for restricting capital outflow; China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have reported they have no intention to implement similar rules. Source
Dalian Wanda Group is a Chinese multinational conglomerate and the world's largest private property developer and owner; it is rumored that the Wanda Group may be interested in acquiring European bank ownership to build out its financial division; current financial businesses include an investment company and Aeon Life Insurance; speculators report the Wanda Group would face challenges acquiring a European bank due to regulatory constraints around banking industry involvement. Source
Chen Wei accumulated losses of over 489,400 yuan ($71,154) from lending platform Jiedaibao, operated by Renrenxing; the Chinese platform facilitated transactions between borrowers and lenders, allowing lenders to set their own interest rates and manage their own credit lending strategies; Renrenxing managed oversight of the platform including responsibility for collections; Chen's strategy was to borrow from platform lenders at low rates and lend to borrowers at higher rates, benefiting from the difference; Chen initially reported success but then increased borrower defaults led to losses of over 489,400 yuan ($71,154); Chen was subpoenaed by Jiedaibao for the funds he owed; Jiedaibao later dropped the case but Chen is now suing Renrenxing for the money owed from borrowers; more than 30 users have now filed court cases against Renrenxing for payments totaling over 22.5 million yuan ($3.27 million); new regulations have now been instituted to stop intermediaries from offering protection against losses. Source
The Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has announced the formation of an advisory committee focused on fintech; development of the advisory committee follows the demonetization of the country's currency and lack of regulation instituted by federal government officials in regards to the P2P lending industry and fintech in general; the advisory committee will include representatives from across the entire fintech sector; a key initiative for the committee will be to mobilize household savings from India's consumers through new risk capital and debt investments. Source
Money360-affiliate M360 Advisors has registered with the South Korea Financial Supervisory Service; the registration allows institutional investors from South Korea to invest in the firm's real estate fund; the fund invests in secured US commercial real estate properties through bridge loans and offers global investors a high yield fixed income alternative; the fund has already received $65 million from a South Korean institutional investor and is planning for investment of $250 million in the first half of 2017; the fund is managed to provide international tax efficient investing along with high yield fixed income returns and has a number of other foreign investors including investors in China, Singapore, South Africa, Europe, Canada, the Netherlands and Kuwait. Source
Fang Fan has reportedly disappeared leaving investors unable to withdraw their funds from eight P2P lending platforms managed by Fan and controlled by Beijing Qiyuan Fortune Network Technology Co. in China; the platforms' investors are now unable to withdraw over 1 billion yuan ($145 million) in funds; platforms operated by Fang Fan included cmtouzi.com, naipinglicai.com, zaodianlicai.com, wanerjialicai.com, qianguan360.com, lexinglicai.com, xjinfu.com and huoniu360.com; cmtouzi.com continues to operate with a plan to provide investment withdrawals for investors. Source
The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF) has released its first report on the alternative finance market, titled, "Africa & Middle East Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report"; the report was created with support from Energy4Impact, UKAid and CME Group Foundation; for 2015 the report cites growth of 59% and a total market of $242 million; Robert Wardrop, executive director at the CCAF says development trends in Africa and the Middle East had a different focus which was on equity crowdfunding and online micro finance as opposed to consumer and business P2P lending in other global markets. Source
Ant Financial is planning to raise $3 billion primarily through a debt offering to finance its acquisition of MoneyGram; it is also planning for future acquisitions; the company has been valued at $75 billion and is still planning a near-term initial public offering. Source
Boris Batin and Alexander Dunaev have grown a successful lending startup after partnering together and launching ID Finance in 2012; the company is an online balance sheet lender that has been expanding throughout Russia, Europe and South America; the partners claim a digital lending business model that can launch and obtain profitability in nine months; part of their success is attributed to identifying challenging markets with growth potential that traditional banks have not entered. Source