Several reports have recently pointed to China as the world's leading country for fintech innovation and adoption; in the first nine months of 2016 over 50% of global fintech investments went to China and the country is reporting the world's four largest fintech unicorns; overall, China has a number of unique factors fueling its fintech growth; some of the main factors include regulatory initiatives and tech savvy underserved consumers and SMEs driving demand; the country is also reporting corporate banks with higher comparative ROEs and greater willingness to invest in digital; additionally, the country's top e-commerce businesses, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, are also significantly influencing fintech growth with growing businesses and investments in payments as well as new technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence; P2P lending is one of fintech's dominant categories with China leading Asia-Pacific market development and reporting 99% of P2P transaction volume, a total value of $101.7 billion in 2015 and over 4,000 P2P lenders. Source
Bitcoin trading has become a viable income source for many Chinese cryptocurrency traders; launched in 2009 the cryptocurrency has recently reached highs of over 8,000 yuan ($1,160.65) and is currently trading at around 6,600 yuan ($957.53); with a global worth of over $14 billion, over 90% is currently in yuan and Chinese investors are actively taking advantage of the currency's gains; investor Huai Yang is reportedly earning 1 million yuan ($145,081) per month from trading bitcoin; other investors have also reported steady bitcoin trading monthly incomes of over 40,000 yuan ($5,803). Source
The National Internet Finance Association has announced the establishment of a P2P Finance Association; the Association will be led by the People's Bank of China, China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission; the Association will seek to improve the industry and promote its development. Source
Tradeshift operates a marketplace for businesses, allowing them to manage supply chain buying and selling; through the partnership with CreditEase, the two firms will develop a financing app that will facilitate lending to Chinese businesses on the Tradeshift platform; according to Tradeshift, the new app will provide a peer-to-peer financing option for hundreds of thousands of China-based exporters. Source
The China market is bigger than the US and they tend to move much faster; Emmanuel Daniel of The Asian Banker compares China today to 1971-1984 in the US when regulation was just beginning to be put in place; Credit China is an example of a successful P2P lender in China, now valued at $3 billion; Yew Kiat Phang speaks about the company, sharing how they initially were a traditional lender, constrained by capital and customers with single revenue streams; the company took a broad approach to fintech, first obtaining a third party payment license; company reported $12 billion in 2016 on their P2P lending platform; their payment gateway saw $30 billion in flow for 2016; Yew Kiat Phang shares other details on the company in the video. Source
Chinese startup Niu Jiao Suo is connecting Chinese investors with foreign mutual funds; investors can currently access funds offered by Blackrock, Vanguard, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs; investors are limited by $50,000 per year but can start with as little as $400; interestingly Niu Jiao Suo is not managing its users money and focuses on ensuring users don't exceed the $50,000 limit; according to Crowdfund Insider: "After funds are deposited into a user's account, the money is sent directly to a custodial account managed by DBS Bank. Niu Jiao Suo's primary role is conducting due diligence on the users to make sure they have a clean background and are not US citizens." Source
The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has issued a new guidance document titled, "Guiding Opinions on Risk Prevention and Control in the Banking Sector"; the document targets banking institutions and their risk prevention efforts related to internet finance businesses; it focuses on ten types of high priority risks and emphasizes the requirement that P2P lenders partner with a custody bank; in addition to further details on broad market rectification it also includes emphasis on student lending and microloan businesses. Source
Huo Xuewen, secretary of Beijing's Municipal Bureau of Finance, discussed potential standards for blockchain in China in a recent speech; Xuewen is a proponent of blockchain and says the country should implement a standardized approach for its development; the government's current focus is on regulatory standards for bitcoin investments and trading; Xuewen says the country can do more with blockchain across all industries. Source
China reported outstanding P2P loans of Rmb 920 billion ($133.5 billion) at the end of March, according to data from Wangdaizhijia; the March data shows resiliency in the industry despite new requirements for P2P lenders and caps on lending from regulators; P2P platforms have been steadily decreasing following the industry's reform, with approximately 2,281 platforms in March; yields on P2P loans have also been trending lower, with the average yield at 9.4% in March. Source