Dubai is quickly becoming a destination for fintech companies as the country has seen a surge in startups the last three years; according to Arif Amiri, CEO of Dubai International Financial Centre Authority (DIFCA), the country hosts 1,715 companies and banking assets have risen from $50 billion to $150 billion; financial services contributes 12% to gross domestic product, by 2024 that number is set to increase to 18%; Gareth Lewis, CEO and co-founder of Delio, which helps firms getting investment, told CNBC Thursday, "there's a fantastic opportunity in the Dubai region purely around the appetite for private investment." Source
Prime Minister Modi's plan to demonetize has put a lot of strain on much of Indian society, now the ICICI Bank is looking to ease that burden by helping to make 100 villages cashless in 100 days; the plan was born out of a successful program that made one village cashless in 2015; the 100 villages will be spread throughout the country and will help 10,000 people overall; local people will be able to use their mobile phones to transact with merchants and banks. Source
Chinese regulators are preparing new rules that target the businesses of the country's small-loan lenders; recent rules have capped P2P loans at Rmb200,000 ($28,925) for an individual and Rmb1 million ($144,626) for a company however small-loan lenders fall far below these thresholds and regulators fear the companies do not have adequate risk controls; 2016 data shows China has 8,673 small-loan companies with loans totaling Rmb927 billion ($134.1 billion) and this is in comparison to approximately Rmb673 billion ($97.3 billion) outstanding from P2P lenders; China's small-loan lenders are active in the market, offering a range of lending solutions and reporting small-loan asset securitizations of Rmb82 billion ($11.9 billion) in 2016; as the country continues its focus on tightening regulation for China's P2P lending industry, Li Junfeng, director of the financial inclusion department at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, says it will be specifically addressing new regulations that target the country's small lenders. Source
B2B FinPAL, Ethis Kapital, FundedByMe Malaysia, ManagePay Services, Modalku Ventures and Peoplender have now been registered with the Securities Commission of Malaysia and plan to begin business in 2017; Malaysia is the first of the ASEAN countries to register P2P lending companies. Source
Ant Financial has rolled out the world's first commercial application of a payment system that identifies payers using facial recognition technology; starting from September 1, a KFC restaurant in Hangzhou allows customers to authenticate their payments by having their faces scanned; the whole process, which takes about ten seconds, does not require users to take out their cell phones; the function is powered by Face ++ technology developed by Beijing startup Megvii. Source
P2P lender China Rapid Finance has announced a partnership with Tencent's wealth management group, Licaitong; China Rapid Finance will list investments on the Licaitong platform; the product listings will include fixed-term investments ranging from nine months to 18 months with expected annualized returns ranging from 4.65% to 6.19%; the investment products reached capacity of RMB 27 million ($3.89 million) within two hours of the launch; China Rapid Finance will continue to offer investments through the Licaitong partnership; in a statement regarding the partnership, Dr. Zang Wang, CEO of China Rapid Finance, said, "This collaboration between CRF and Tencent's Licaitong platform will support the development of inclusive finance in China." Source
Russian marketplace lender Blackmoon has launched Blackmoon Crypto for tokenized investment vehicles; seeks to support management of tokenized funds; Blackmoon Crypto is incorporated in Singapore; it will not initially be partnering for US investments however the firm is applying for a broker dealer license in the US. Source
51 Credit Card, in cooperation with Harvest Investment, has launched an investment fund with RMB1 billion ($150 million); 51 Credit Card in particular favors companies with good online lending users, big data and traffic acquisition capacity. Source (Chinese)
K-Bank has gained authorization to open South Korea's first online bank; firm is an affiliate of Alibaba-owned Ant Financial; Kakao Bank is also involved in the final approval process to open the country's second online bank. 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