The Series C fundraising included $40 million in equity and a $200 million debt facility; the platform provides post-graduate loans to international students; it plans to use the funding to expand globally and offer more loans. Source
UK Small business lender Funding Circle attempts to simplify the investment process by removing manual bidding in favor of a two tiered autobid process; the two autobid accounts will be: balanced with a targeted return of 7.5% and conservative with a targeted return of 4.8%; UK Managing Director James Meekings tells AltFi: "These changes will make lending at Funding Circle simpler, better, fairer. We want to create a level playing field for all investors and ensure everyone has the same opportunity to lend to UK businesses."; the changes were in response to individual investors "gaming" the system and not allowing the passive investors access to higher return loans which are very popular; according to AltFi this is a trend in in the industry with other platforms, including Zopa in May, moving to this process. Source
Lend Academy talks with Greg Gibb, CEO and co-chairman of Lufax; Greg Gibb talks about the founding of the business as a P2P platform, its relationship with Ping An and how it has evolved to become a broader provider of wealth management product offerings; the podcast interview also discusses Lufax's future plans for international expansion and a potential IPO. Source
In guidelines released on its website, China said it would restrict overseas investment in sectors such as property, hotels, cinema, entertainment and sports teams; the announcement comes as Beijing is supporting overseas technology and initiatives such as the massive global infrastructure investment plan One Belt, One Road; specific industries under close watch include Hollywood entertainment, the hotel industry and foreign insurance investments; overall, the efforts from the Chinese government are another step in reigning in foreign investment and supporting economic development. Source
Standard Chartered China's credit cards can now be added to WeChat user payment accounts, marking the first foreign capital-backed bank to cooperate with Tencent this way; according to Tencent Financial Technology Group (Tencent FiT) Payment Platform Product Manager Chen Qiru. the cooperation will help WeChat Pay to acquire more international users and WeChat Pay will strengthen cooperation with international financial institutions. Source (Chinese)
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) has also invested in Netflix, Snapchat and Twitter; with the newest round of funding the company's value is expected to increase to over $1 billion; it has previously raised a total of $116 million; the firm is currently doing more than GBP1 billion ($1.29 billion) of transfers per month on its platform; new initiatives include opening a Singapore office, launching a borderless business account and adding its service to Facebook Messenger. Source
The Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA) is a trade body representing three quarters of the P2P lending market in the UK; RateSetter has breached rules set by the P2PFA; according to RateSetter, "No customer has experienced any loss from our actions but we recognize that our actions breached the principles of the Association."; recently the company has been in the news with regards to their wholesale lending business that it has been winding down. Source
Ping An Insurance Group's online lender Lufax reported that it is now profitable and is hoping to keep that trend for the rest of the year; "Lufax's development is extremely robust. It actually turned around in the first half. We are very confident that it could stay profitable for the full-year," said Jessica Tan Sin-Yin, Ping An's chief operating officer and chief information officer, during the Chinese insurance group's earnings announcement; Lufax is the largest P2P lending platform in China with $225 billion of outstanding loans; according to their latest funding round in January the company is valued at $18.5 billion with 43% being held by Ping An; the company is planning to go public soon and according to CEO Gregory Gibb they have done a lot of homework for Hong Kong ahead of the potential listing. Source
Bloomberg and Quartz have recently been granted access to one of the largest bitcoin mines in the world operated by Bitmain; this Bitmain mine generates about a quarter of a million dollars a day worth of bitcoin; Bitmain's valuation is in the billions and the company is preparing for a possible IPO; Bitmain is also investing in an expansion to US. Source
The Series C round was led by Ribbit Capital; SAIF Partners, Sequoia India and Creation Investments Capital Management also participated; the company plans to expand lending, invest in products/technology and widen their geographical footprint; Capital Float will focus on loans to small merchants and kirana store owners; the company has raised $87 million and has about 15,000 customers in e-commerce, traditional retail, manufacturing as well as services businesses. Source