India's demonetization of the Rs 500 ($7.32) and Rs 1,000 ($14.65) continues to help online alternative finance lenders; uncertain investors are increasingly utilizing alternative finance platforms as a safer investment over gold, real estate and the stock market; invoice financing platform KredX has reported investment increases of 400% to 500%; with less of a cash focused society, P2P lenders Capital Float, Faircent, i-lend and AnyTimeLoan.in have also reported significantly higher platform investments. Source
CreditEase was China's first P2P lender, founded in 2006; since its founding the firm has been expanding its services to wealth management and robo advice; Ning Tang, CreditEase founder and CEO, provides his insight on the business and the online lending industry in an interview; highlights how the company plans to expand its business lines through partnerships while also managing regulatory controls. Source
Indonesia's Financial Services Authority has issued regulations for alternative lenders; the regulations are slightly less strict than expected; they require fintech companies to have capital of 1 billion rupiah ($74,239) when registering their business and capital of 2.5 billion rupiah ($187,210) when applying for a business license; the regulations do not set any limits on interest rates. Source
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) had meetings with various bitcoin exchanges this week including BTCC, OKCoin and Huobi; along with the meetings two press releases were issued; according to a translation from Coindesk, the document reads, "Bitcoin is not a currency and shouldn't be viewed as such. Those who invest in bitcoin should accordingly be aware of the risks it poses and protect their investment"; officials also reminded exchanges about complying with local state laws and other regulations. Source
New regulations slowed the growth of P2P lending in China in 2016; data from P2P001 reports that transaction volume in P2P lending increased by 138% in 2016 to over 2.8 trillion yuan ($403 billion) however that was only half of the transaction volume growth reported in 2014 and 2015; on August 24, 2016 the government issued new requirements for the industry, one of which requires that lenders partner with banks for custodian services; this adds additional costs for lenders and as of the end of 2016 only 7.98% had partnered with a custodian bank. Source
China Rapid Finance currently has 1.2 million borrowers on its platform and is seeking to triple its users; it recently received $70 million in funding which will help to support the growth; also wants to increase its users to 10 million over the next two to three years; the firm says it is well positioned to manage new regulations from the Chinese government and it is developing its platform to more broadly target the needs of the country's 500 million residents. Source
Reports continue to show Chinese investors increasingly investing in bitcoin as the yuan devalues; over 90% of bitcoin trading has been reported by Chinese investors and the cryptocurrency's price is showing close correlation with the value of the yuan; Chinese regulation limiting foreign investment to $50,000 per year in order to stabilize the currency appears to be a factor as wealthy Chinese investors use bitcoin investment to evade the regulation since it is considered a borderless investment; while China appears to be a driving force for the currency's gains, experts also believe improved trading efficiencies and solutions for bitcoin are also factors for its recent appreciation. Source
One of China's e-commerce giants, Baidu, has obtained regulatory approval for Baixin Bank; follows banking sector business activity from competitors Alibaba and Tencent; the banking unit will be digital only, offering online banking, telephone banking, ATM and mobile banking services; Baidu owns 30% of Baixin Bank and will work in partnership with China CITIC Bank which currently owns 70% of the bank. 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
Chinese regulators are investigating investment in the cryptocurrency bitcoin as its price is reporting high correlation with the value of the Chinese yuan; according to data from bitcoinity.org, yuan transactions have also accounted for 98% of bitcoin's trading in the past six months; regulators have met with bitcoin exchanges to monitor investment activity; they have also requested that the exchanges do not market the yuan's devaluation as an investment incentive; investors have reported that transaction volumes are limited to a few hundred thousand yuan. Source