Prior to the license, the company operated as a platform for other third party funds to sell products through their wealth management platform Qian.qq.com and WeChat; now the company will be able to sell direct to its nearly 1 billion users; the company already had licenses for mobile payments, insurance and micro finance. Source
One of the first posts I ever wrote on Lend Academy back in 2010 was about mulling the idea of...
China International Capital Corporation (CICC), China’s HK-listed tier 1 investment bank, announced on Wednesday that it will introduce Tencent as a strategic shareholder (4.95%); CICC says the company will be able to provide more customized wealth management products and services through its cooperation with Tencent in terms of targeted marketing and big data analysis; the two parties will establish a “strategic cooperation committee” that composed of executives from both companies to facilitate the cooperation; the deal is pending regulatory approval. Source (Chinese)
Tencent has launched its credit scoring service, Tencent Credit Score, Tencent's counterpart to Ant Financial's Sesame Credit; for now, only QQ Vips can have access to their score (QQ is a social network tool developed by Tencent, popular among teenagers); credit scores range from 300 to 850; the score measures a person on five different aspects including credit history, security, wealth, consuming habits and social network. Source (Chinese)
Tencent has reported plans in a white paper for the development of a blockchain platform; the firm says it plans to use the platform for offering digital asset management, authentication and shared economies, among other services; the firm also says the platform will help it to collaborate with other firms; in its white paper, Tencent also advocates for blockchain development and government integration in China. Source
This weeks WeiyangX Fintech Review on Crowdfund Insider covered the PBoC discussing key findings in their fintech sandbox program; Pinganfang.com found itself involved in a US crowdfunding fraud case; JD Finance and China UnionPay partnered on a blockchain based risk information sharing mechanism; Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma announced that Ant Financial will delay their IPO; Tencent reached an agreement with China CITIC Bank to cooperate on cloud services, a financial big data platform and security. Source.
WSJ published a story on China’s consumer credit rating ecosystem: the fact that China doesn’t have a widely accepted system to gauge individual’s creditworthiness leads technology giants (Ant Financial, Tencent among others) to developing their own credit-rating systems, but none of these projects has emerged as a single nationwide standard either yet; problems with generating credit scores in the private sector include data accuracy and privacy; the story says the lack of a single accepted standard is holding back the growth of borrowing among rising middle class in China. Source
CB Insights outlines five tech giants' notable investments, partnerships and M&A moves in the Southeast Asia region; the five tech giants included in the article are Alibaba, Ant Financial, Tencent, Didi Chuxing and JD.com; the article highlights Ant Financial's investments in Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia, as well as its strategic partnerships throughout Southeast Asia. Source
Tencent, with advantages in cloud computing, big data, social networking, and mobile payments, will cooperate with China Development Bank to provide students loans; China Development Bank is a "policy financial institute" under the State Council; the bank covers over 90% of the student loans market. Source (Chinese)
Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and Tencent are leading e-commerce market growth, seeking to do everything from cloud computing to digital payments; the Chinese market infrastructure is also helping their business growth and their business models are rivaling comparative US companies; Jack Ma's Alibaba is expanding rapidly in the global markets with partnerships and acquisitions and Tencent is following closely with numerous acquisitions as well; investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates China's online retail market to double in size by 2020 to $1.7 trillion and aggressive market expansion from Alibaba and Tencent appears to be successfully supporting that estimate. Source