As the government cracks down on riskier lenders the more established brands of Ant Financial and Lufax look to become even more dominant; China’s top ten online lenders account for 36 percent of all loans and that number looks to continue to rise as smaller lenders look to be on their way out; the top lenders use spending analysis, AI and more to determine creditworthiness of borrowers; with the rise in wealth and spending power in China the dominant fintech firms are ideally positioned. 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
Lufax is one of China's leading P2P lenders with support from Ping An Insurance; it is currently planning to launch a global asset allocation platform to facilitate investment for middle income earners across Asia in 2017; the platform will build on the company's offerings in P2P lending and wealth management; Lufax is also working with four investment banks on an initial public offering in Hong Kong. Source
Lufax sees a growing market opportunity in China's retail investment space and is planning to increase its focus on this area of the business; the firm is currently the world's highest valued P2P lender at $18.5 billion; it has $56.9 billion in client assets with P2P loans accounting for a third which is expected to decrease to 15%; it plans to expand the investments it offers through online brokerage accounts and also enhance its mobile and online trading capabilities; the firm is also rumored to have plans for an initial public offering in Hong Kong in the second half of 2017. Source
Shanghai-based marketplace lender, Lufax, has announced it will be expanding its business into Hong Kong and Singapore; firm also announced plans in September for a Hong Kong-listed IPO which is expected to raise approximately $5 billion; company will leverage its relationship with Ping An for the expansion; funding for the expansion will also be supported by a $1.2 billion fundraise from earlier in the year. Source
Lufax has reportedly hired five banks to work on a Hong Kong IPO which could raise as much as $5 billion; SoftBank’s vision fund is also in talks to invest in the company according to sources; Lufax is the 10th largest unicorn and has delayed IPO plans over the past few years. 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
In business for six years, Lufax has expanded to meet a growing market demand for fintech products in China with a number of factors helping its success; beginning as a P2P lending firm with the support of Ping An the firm has been able to expand its business to wealth management and overall sees an underserved domestic market of over one billion people interested in the firm's solutions; it now has over 25.5 million registered users, RMB390.92 billion ($57 billion) of retail assets and RMB111.65 billion ($16 billion) of loans under management; it has been able to successfully navigate the market challenges with help from Ping An and is now approaching an even more global introduction through its potential initial public offering expected for later this year in Hong Kong which could raise approximately $5 billion for the firm. Source
Chinese internet finance business, Lufax, is developing an online trading platform for Chinese investors that will allow them to invest in assets anywhere in the world; the firm is the world's second largest financial technology company; the trading platform it is developing will launch in 2017 and seeks to meet a demand from Chinese investors to diversify away from a depreciating yuan. Source
Though the company started off as a P2P lender, Lufax has diversified their offerings with great success and now views themselves as a Charles Schwab for the 21st century; as CEO Gregory Gibb says, "The truth is, we started there, but it represents less than 10% of our business volume today. So I think we're really very much an online wealth management platform."; Lufax focuses their business on wealth management, credit-rating services and institutional services where 60% to 70% of its solutions are based on traditional credit-rating metrics, with the remaining 30% to 40% centered on big data. Source