China Continues To Dominate Global FINTECH Industry

[TaiShang]

China dominates world ranking of fintech firms
China Daily, November 16, 2017

China reaffirmed its status as a world leader in the financial technology industry when it secured five of the top 10 places in a ranking of the sector's best-performing companies of 2017.

Nine Chinese companies featured in the top 100 Leading Global Fintech Innovators, an annual list compiled by UK-based advisory firm KPMG and Australian investment company H2 Ventures for the financial technology sector, which is also known as fintech.

Last year, eight Chinese companies made the list.

"China continues to dominate the fintech landscape," said H2 Ventures partner Ben Heap. "These firms are continuing a trend that is several years in the making and highlights the extraordinary rise of the fintech industry in China."

Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial remains the most successful global fintech company, according to the report. The third-party payment company runs several businesses, including mobile payment platform Alipay.

Chinese online property insurance company ZhongAn climbed three spots to claim second position in this year's ranking. The company is a joint venture between Alibaba, Tencent, and Ping An Insurance.

Lending company Qufenqi was third on the list. It offers smartphones, laptops, and other consumer electronics devices to students and professionals on monthly installment plans. Ant Financial is among the lead investors in the company.

The authors of the report ranked companies based on several factors, including total capital raised and the rate at which capital was raised.

The 100 companies on the list raised a combined $5.5 billion over the last 12 months.

Almost half of the companies on the list are involved in payments and lending. However, three entrants are involved in data and analytics, and four provide blockchain and digital currency services, indicating a growth in diversity in the industry, according to authors of the report.

Eight companies from the United Kingdom made this year's list, down from nine last year. The UK had 13 on the list in 2015. One UK company– digital banking platform Atom Bank – made the top 10.

Nineteen enterprises from the United States featured on the list, the most from any single nation. Twenty-two US companies were ranked in 2016.

While China and the US performed strongly this year, 29 different countries are represented in the list, with companies from South Korea, Mexico, and Poland included for the first time.

"It is noteworthy that 19 countries are represented in the top 50," the report states. "It is clear that no one nation or region 'owns' fintech innovation – fintech is a global phenomenon."

Chinese online financial asset trading company Lufax was sixth on the list, while JD.com affiliate JD Finance was ninth. The company offers a range of financial services, including risk management, payment services, and insurance.

Four more Chinese companies feature in the top 50, including online lending firm WeLab and financial services search platform Rong360. Two Chinese firms entered the list for the first time: 51Xinyongka, which runs a mobile app that manages credit card bills, and lending company Dianrong.

http://china.org.cn/business/2017-11/16/content_41899128.htm

 

[cirr]

China Citic, Baidu launch direct bank in fintech push

11/17/2017

BEIJING (Reuters) - China Citic Bank Corp <601998.SS> and search engine giant Baidu Inc <BIDU.O> launched on Saturday a direct banking joint venture, dubbed AiBank, to capitalize on China's rapidly growing fintech sector.

AiBank is one among several tie-ups between an internet firm and a lender in China's booming online finance market where technology gurus like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd <BABA.N> and Tencent Holdings Ltd <0700.HK> have already set up their own finance arms to offer a range of financial products including payment, wealth management and micro loans.

A direct bank offers services over the internet instead of through physical branches.

AiBank will focus on lending to individuals and small businesses while leveraging big data and artificial intelligence to build new risk control models, Li Rudong, president of the new bank said at a launch event in Beijing.

Li said 60 percent of the new bank's employees will be technology staff.

"AiBank is the future of intelligent finance...It is an institution that understands customers best and understands finance best," said Baidu Chief Operating Officer Lu Qi.

Mid-tier lender Citic Bank owns 70 percent of the joint venture, while Baidu controls the remaining 30 percent. The direct bank has a registered capital of 2 billion yuan.

China's banking regulator approved the establishment of AiBank earlier this year.

(Reporting by Shu Zhang and Elias Glenn; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

http://isp.netscape.com/news/story/0002/20171118/KBN1DI04D_1

 

[TaiShang]

Tencent to set up fintech lab in Xiongan
(China Daily) 15:51, December 04, 2017

Technology giant to create innovation platform, digitize medical services

Tencent Holdings Ltd, Asia's most valuable firm, is planning to set up a financial technology lab and digitize public medical services in the Xiongan New Area, as part of a broader push to gain a foothold in China's latest economic zone.

The tech giant formed a strategic partnership with the local authority on Thursday, pledging to bring its cloud computing, blockchain and big data technologies to a variety of scenarios in the public and private sectors, according to a statement released on Friday.

Xiongan will serve as an "innovation experimental platform" to build the so-called smart society, and is poised to become a role model for digital upgrade, said Tencent chairman Pony Ma at a forum held ahead of the signing ceremony in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province.

"Digital economy will contribute to over 70 percent of China's gross domestic product growth this year," Ma said. "We will use technologies to spur new growth momentum and help empower industries from retail to manufacturing."

Under the agreement, the company would also team up with six local hospitals to adopt artificial intelligence in disease diagnosis, the first batch of its kind following Tencent's recruitment in a national initiative that aims to lead the country towards global AI championship.

To be specific, Tencent will focus on computer vision and image recognition for medical diagnosis, combining algorithm models such as deep learning with the massive trove of medical data to assist doctors in accurate diagnosis and treatment.

"Tencent is becoming a key enabler of AI for digital innovation … as its strong cloud structure provides the essential building blocks for an array of AI works," said Charlie Dai, principal analyst at consultancy firm Forrester.

Beijing has called for deeper integration between the real economy and advanced technologies, including internet, big data and AI, and has unveiled a three-step road map with the goal of making the country a global technology leader by 2050.

Last week, the government urged the country's technology trinity－namely Tencent, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Baidu Inc－and iFlytek Co Ltd to delve into research of AI-powered medical diagnosis, civic services, autonomous driving and voice recognition.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1204/c90000-9300342.html

 

[cirr]

Blockchain for FinTech, AI on trial in Shanghai

2017-12-19 09:27

Shanghai Daily Editor: Huang Mingrui

A Blockchain platform that targets the booming Financial Technology, or FinTech, and artificial intelligence sectors in the country is on trial in Shanghai — the first of its kind in China, Shanghai Daily learned yesterday.

Shanghai-based startup Bottos offers a trading platform between AI firms and organizations that can handle a huge volume of data, which are a key resource to help AI firms improve algorithms.

Bottos' applications have unique advantages of Blockchain like trackability, creditable data and records and user-friendly interfaces, said the company. Its unidentified investors are from both finance and tech industries.

Blockchain, which distributes a database network that maintains a continuously growing list of "blocks" with data records, provides a tamper-proof data structure for virtual transactions.

Bottos now boasts an online community of over 100,000 users. Bottos has tech partners including ARM, SenseTime and Haier.

In November, China's Bitcoin trading platforms stopped topping up and cash services after the government halted Bitcoin trading in September as it clamped down on crypto-currencies.

China's direct investment in FinTech sectors in 2016 tripled annually to 6.5 billion pounds ($8.1 billion), pointing to a huge potential in online finance, blockchain and other applications, EY said recently.

China aims to develop a AI market valued at more than 150 billion yuan ($22.66 billion) by 2020.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/12-19/284977.shtml

 

[MultaniGuy]

good news and congrats to China.

 

[cirr]

Fintech opens new vistas for buyers

2017-12-19 11:00

China Daily Editor: Gu Mengxi

Big data, cloud computing, AI offer plethora of options for customers

Financial technology, or fintech, is offering automobile buyers new purchasing experiences in the form of big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, face recognition, intelligent risk control etc, and the technology is expected to reshape the whole industry in the coming decade, a new report said.

As much as 4.04 trillion yuan ($611.4 billion) worth of automobiles were traded through retail channels across China in 2016, and the penetration of automobile financing had reached 35 percent. Compared to other retail sectors, automobile consumers are more traditional, meaning there is still huge room for upgrading and development, according to a report on the application of fintech in China's automobile finance sector published on Dec 12.

The report was jointly published by US market research firm JD Power and Shenzhen-based Ping An Bank. It noted that innovative fintech applications have improved customers' buying experiences. For example, big data and system automatic decision-making engines have accelerated the process of issuing bank loans, said Xue Min, general manager of financial services at JD Power China.

Industry players have cut the waiting period between loan applications and car pickup with loans to a mini-mum of 500 seconds, compared with 8.79 days two years ago, said Xue.

China, the world's largest automobile market for eight consecutive years, manufactured 28.12 million cars and sold 28.03 million units in 2016, up 14.5 percent and 13.7 percent respectively, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

However, according to JD Power's estimates, new automobile sales in China will slow down in the next couple of years.

In the past five years, along with soaring sales of passenger vehicles, Ping An Bank's auto finance division has seen its business scale expanding 10 times to 100 billion yuan, said Fu Zhongqiang, president of the auto finance division at Ping An Bank.

Fu said the auto finance sector is expected to be a key profit contributor to Ping An's retail business.

Though China's car financing market remains in its infancy, many young Chinese consumers are willing to buy cars on mortgages. However, the industry still lags behind its counterparts in the United States and Europe where between 70 percent and 80 percent of cars are purchased on credit, said Zhang Xu'an, CEO of Yixin Group, a leading Chinese online automobile transaction platform.

"More than 35 percent of Chinese automobiles were sold last year through financing and leasing, and we expect the figure to rise to 45 percent by the end of this year," said Zhang.

Nearly 30 percent of car purchases in China in 2015 were on credit, up from 18 percent in 2013, according to a Deloitte report, which predicted China's penetration rate of auto retail finance products to cross 50 percent by 2020.

"Buying cars at a traditional dealership often means more time and higher cost than buying online due to the limited availability of car models, lack of information, long transaction period and insufficient services," said Zhao Xiang, an analyst from Analysys, a domestic internet research firm.

According to Zhao, online automobile transaction platforms have stimulated car buying demand as they offer Chinese consumers an opportunity to buy their dream car with low down payments.

"There is not enough data available about new car trading, but the available used car online trading data do give us some insights of internet's involvement in the automobile trading business," said Zhao.

According to Zhao, 10.39 million used vehicles were traded throughout 2016, up 10.3 percent year-on-year.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/12-19/285023.shtml

 

[TaiShang]

Smaller lenders embrace fintech wave
China Daily, December 15, 2017

Financial technology or fintech, the new kid on the technology block, is spreading from large financial institutions to small and medium-sized banks in China.

Fintech, which is broadly defined as any technological innovation in financial services, utilizes technology that is widely available as payment apps to more complex software applications such as artificial intelligence and big data. Nearly 50 percent of the small and medium-sized banks have formed specific development plans for fintech, while about 96 percent have set up online banking systems and 54 percent have utilized big data analysis to control risks, according to findings from the Internet Finance Association of Small and Medium-sized Banks (IFAB), an alliance set up recently in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

The report also said the figures indicate small and medium-sized banks have attached great importance to digitalization, but the performance of their e-platforms has not been that satisfactory.

Challenges these banks face also include less access to clients and data, increasing demand of improving user experience and loss of young clients, according to the report.

Huang Runzhong, secretary general of the China Banking Association, said that a small and medium-sized bank cannot deal with these challenges by itself and hence needs to join hands with others to seize the opportunity.

The overall asset size of all small and medium-sized banks in China is about 65 trillion yuan ($9.8 trillion), accounting for 40 percent of the industry total. They are a significant part of the nation's banking system and a major force to service small and micro businesses.

But the digitalization of banking system requires huge economic investment. For example, Ping An Insurance Group Co has invested more than 50 billion yuan to develop big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other fintech technologies, while hiring about 22,000 talents in this field.

Ping An Chairman Ma Mingzhe added that these banks are also confronted with the new macro financing environment, such as slowing growth, shrinking interest margins, increasing costs and risks.

Sun Jianyi, head of IFAB, pledged to facilitate the development of the sector by in-depth fintech cooperation, including online exchange of interbank assets, blockchain and cloud computing.

He also said it aims to become the largest fintech association of small and medium-sized banks in China. More than 230 banks have joined with the asset size of 35 trillion yuan so far.

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2017-12/15/content_50105285.htm

 

[TaiShang]

FinTech in China: The Past, Present and Future Prospects

Ben Shenglin, 2017-12-28

Editor’s note: From street food to luxury watches, finding and buying things has never been as easy in China, thanks to mobile devices. The fast-growing FinTech industry has awoken once dormant stashes of money by connecting customer demand to services quickly and accurately. But as it boosts consumption, it also breeds risk. Chinese policymakers have a tricky task at hand: balancing regulation without strangling FinTech’s potential. With China firmly established as a leader in the sector, there are few examples for authorities to learn from as they look to reform.

China’s Miraculous Rise in FinTech

The technology behind FinTech is complicated, but the implications for daily life are simple. The boards illustrate the QR code for payment put out by a fruit vendor in Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province. VCG Photo.

2003 was a tough year for China. The SARS panic shut down the country, leaving many people grounded at home. A little known e-commerce company in an east Chinese city started offering “online payment” services as part of its efforts to enable and facilitate online transactions. Ten years later, a little-known asset manager in the remote northern region of Inner Mongolia leapfrogged industry leaders by working with this company to distribute its simple money market fund products through its vast network of users, offering them access to money market funds that were traditionally reserved for large institutional and corporate investors. The online payment service is called Alipay, and there is no better company to illustrate the miraculous rise of FinTech in China. Today the company has over 500 million users and is the largest online and mobile payment company in the world. Its parent company Ant Financial has been consistently ranked as the largest and most valuable FinTech company in the world.

China’s leadership in FinTech is not just in payment services. In the peer-to-peer lending arena, China’s first marketplace lending platform PPMoney was founded two years after the London-based ZOPA, the first P2P lending platform in the world. But today, Chinese marketplace lenders account for more than 60 percent of global volume and some of them are global leaders in the sector.

The insurance sector has seen a similar rise. Riding on the boom in consumer insurance products, Zhongan, a purely online insurance provider, was recently listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, making it the largest FinTech player in the insurance sector.

From a macro perspective, China boasts a world-class FinTech ecosystem. A recent study by the Academy of Internet Finance, Zhejiang University, shows that the Pearl River Delta region (with Shenzhen as its core), the Yangtze River Delta region (with Hangzhou and Shanghai as the core) and Beijing have emerged as three world-class FinTech hubs.

Global Leader by Accident or Design?

A customer pays with a mobile device in a subway in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang Province. VCG Photo.

Though there is much celebration and consensus about China’s position as a global leader in FinTech, there are different theories about why China is on top.

One school of thought is that the FinTech companies in China exploited loopholes in the Chinese market, which has struggled with less than sophisticated regulations. The one powerful argument in support of this theory is that money market fund Yuebao and bank deposits are subject to different regulations. For example, Yuebao is not subject to deposit reserves. Not surprisingly, this argument has a big following in the banking industry. However, the counter argument from the FinTech world is that the money market fund as a product had been around for a while, and anybody could have taken advantage of the perceived loopholes. Therefore FinTech’s innovative and powerful distribution channels made the difference.

Other arguments range from unequal treatment of consumer rights (pure FinTech players reportedly do not strictly abide by consumer protection rules on areas like data privacy) or fair competition (many FinTech players heavily subsidize their products). Different theories aside, it can be said that it is China’s generally friendly ecosystem that has made it a global leader in FinTech. Whether or not it was by accident or by design remains highly debatable.

Fintech China: Cloudy Prospects?

VCG Photo

As the Chinese government shifts its policy priority to focus more on financial stability, a flurry of regulatory and administrative measures have been rolled out to contain risks, and industry players are feeling the pressure. While the government has provided some general guidance, details remain sketchy. Will the government continue to encourage financial innovation and FinTech? Who has the primary regulatory authority? What regulations are coming? How are they going to be applied? The market needs and is anxiously awaiting clarity.

It is generally agreed that there are three primary drivers behind innovation in FinTech: the market demand for affordable financial services, technological progress and a robust policy and regulatory regime. China and the developing world tend to have strong unmet or under-met demand for basic financial services, given financial repression in these markets. Technological progress in smartphones serves as an enabler, making it possible for services to be delivered digitally to large numbers of customers anytime, anywhere. In this area, China again is a leader, with global internet giants like Tencent and Alibaba.

The third enabler is the policy and regulatory environment. China was probably the best playground for FinTech when it had few regulations or lax enforcement, leading to vibrant entrepreneurship and plenty of capital backing up investment opportunities. But the recent policy shift towards risk containment is swinging the pendulum, and along with it the risk of inhibiting the entrepreneurship that has made China a global leader in the first place. The policy risk and regulatory uncertainty have already had a negative impact on the sector, casting doubt over its long-term prospects. Will Chinese regulators be sound enough to strike the right balance between financial innovation and stability? Answers to this question will have huge implications for China and the FinTech sector for many years to come.

About the author: Ben Shenglin is a professor and chair at the Department of Finance & Accounting, Zhejiang University.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/7759444e34637a6333566d54/share_p.html

***

Where is IT SP12?

 

[cirr]

Ant Financial and the Greening of Fintech

Ant Forest is the world’s first, largescale, bottom-up pilot in greening citizens’ consumption behavior.

By Phylicia Wu

January 25, 2018

Financial technology, colloquially known as fintech, is the underlying infrastructure of recent global headlines — bitcoin’s dramatic ebbs and flows, the proliferation of mobile bike-sharing, and the growing issues of micro-lending in China. It is ubiquitous in China, and a handful of Chinese companies dominate the space including Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. The fintech boom has certainly re-shaped the way business is done and fashioned societal shifts in China’s consumer market; it is changing behaviors. Can the fintech boom also create opportunities to help spur sustainable development?

Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba, is one clear example of a company using fintech to encourage a greener world. The company is known for its mobile payment platform, Alipay, and for the world’s largest money-market fund, Yu’e Bao. Under the Ant umbrella, Ant Forest is a lesser-known initiative that is poised to make a big wave.

Ant Forest is the world’s first largescale, bottom-up pilot in greening citizens’ consumption behavior through the use digital technology and social media. It is an app that Ant users can voluntarily engage with to reduce their carbon footprint and encourage their social networks to do the same. Users that perform carbon-reducing activities, such as paying bills online or walking to work, relative to a predetermined benchmark, are rewarded “green energy” points. As users accumulate enough points virtually, a real tree is planted. To date, Ant Forest has planted saxauls, willows, and Scots pine trees in Inner Mongolia and Gansu.

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Users of Ant Forest also interact with their social networks through the ability to “water,” where green energy points can be transferred to friends up to three times a day to cultivate their virtual tree. During certain periods, users can earn “lucky cards” that can be exchanged for cash rewards. By implementing methods to interact, socialize, and accomplish goals, the app has effectively gamified carbon footprint tracking and, as a report from the UN Environment Program put it, “taps into the addictive urge we feel when playing games.” This is the first known attempt to gamify sustainability. Living a low carbon lifestyle is officially fun.

The app was launched in August 2016 and as of April 2017, there were over 220 million users, which is about the population size of Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world last year. This has contributed to carbon emission reduction of 5,000 tons per day, or the weight of about 10,000 cars. It is estimated that 65 percent of Ant Forest users are 28 years of age or younger. The initial success of this app has led Ant into internal discussions on launching a version of Ant Forest for small and medium size businesses and inspired a few other tree-growing apps — not entirely copies or competitors of Ant Forest — like “Hu Huan Sen Ling” that encourage environmental awareness by planting a tree for a small fee.

The implications of Ant Forest, beyond the physical trees planted, are certainly powerful. This experiment has successfully gamified philanthropic efforts and initiated a small wave of social change. It shows that digital technology utilized in the form of a game and across Ant’s broad platform can be applied to influence individuals to engage in a more ecologically sustainable lifestyle. Future developments such as gaming companies monetizing philanthropic efforts could be game-changing — think Electronic Arts monetizing consumerism with The Sims.

It is important to take stock of the many questions that remain unanswered like incentive structure, longevity, and actual environmental impact. Will users continue to be motivated to engage in a low carbon lifestyle? Will users begin to pay less attention to the app and move onto to the next big thing? Can the app be replicated outside of China?

With Ant Forest, Ant Financial has developed a way to make personal environmentally friendly decisions easy and enjoyable. It demonstrates that the power of individuals together to affect sustainable change from the bottom-up is not only exceeding expectations, but also a trend of the future as fintech and other digital technologies will undoubtedly continue to aid China and the world’s green transition.

Phylicia Wu is Associate Director of the Paulson Institute’s Green Finance program.

https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/ant-financial-and-the-greening-of-fintech/

 

[TaiShang]

China Fintech Companies Dominate Top-10 List of Global Innovators

YIMIAN WU
November 16, 2017 — 14:18 HKT

China continues to dominate the fintech landscape, accounting for 5 of the top 10 fintech companies globally in 2017, according toa report by KPMG and H2 Ventures, which compiles a list of the year’s best fintech innovators from around the world.

Chinese fintech companies take the top three places on the list. Alibaba-backed third party payments firm Ant Financial, China’s first Internet-only insurer ZhongAn Insurance and online micro-lender Qudian are ranked as the top three fintech companies. They are joined on the top-ten list by Ping An Insurance-backed Lufax and JD Finance.

“China continues to dominate the fintech landscape,” said Ben Heap, Founding Partner at H2 Ventures. “These firms are continuing a trend that is several years in the making and highlights the extraordinary rise of the fintech industry in China.”

The authors of the report ranked companies based on several factors, including total capital raised and the rate at which capital was raised.

Compared with the ranking last year, two more Chinese firms were added to the top 50 list. Online marketplace lending company Dianrong and credit card and online financial service firm U51.com, or 51Xinyongka, rose to top 50. Among the 100 fintech companies, lending and payments focused companies lead in terms of sectors.

“The top 10 are a strong reflection of the diversity of fintech innovation. There are fintechs with lending and payment platforms, insurtech, digital banking and companies applying big data to fintech,” Heap added. “Superior data and analytics capability notably will be a requirement to be a great financial services firm in the future, be it a traditional bank or a game changing fintech start-up.”

This year also sees Chinese fintech start-ups rushing for initial public offering, including Qudian and ZhongAn Insurance. Also, Lufax and Dianrong are reportedly preparing for IPO.

 

[cirr]

Kuai Niu partners with high-level conference to boost fintech industry

2018-02-10 09:26 Editor: Mo Hong'e

The 2018 International Youth Leadership Finance Summit is held in Shanghai. (Photo provided to Ecns.cn)

Kuai Niu Group, one of the leading providers of financial technology solution, partnered with an international conference, pinning hopes to leverage joint efforts to create drastic changes in traditional financial services.

Executives of the Shanghai-based company were invited to the 2018 International Youth Leadership Finance Summit in Shanghai, organized by Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF) Master of Finance (MF) Program.

Chen Jiayue, head of Kuai Niu's risk management and modeling team, was asked to judge fintech competitions held during the four-day summit.

The event took place as financial services, buoyed by several key factors, face sweeping technological changes that profoundly influence their business model.

After several rounds of intense competition, 130 outstanding undergraduates from 25 top-class universities and colleges across the world like Tsinghua University, Peking University and London School of Economics and Political Science, were shortlisted in the final.

The final competition fixed on four topics – "Rotation Strategy within the Banking Sector", "Design of Blockchain Application", "Quantitative Asset Allocation Using Black-Litterman Model" and "Credit Risk Model for Individual Loan".

Teams from London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Toronto, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Renmin University of China eventually won the championships, respectively.

Chen Jiayue said, "The presentations of all participants impressed us a lot, with better-than-expected performance."

"I hope these participants, after the summit, could get to know more about the market needs and capitalize on their innovative thoughts to further upgrade traditional financial services," he added.

Chen is best known for his achievements in financial analysis. He holds a bachelor degree in computer at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a dual-degree in master of financial engineering and mathematics at Clemson University.

During the non-competition sessions, SAIF MF students made special presentations. With the guidance of professors and mentors, participants have more access to converse with company executives, who exerted profound influence on their understanding of the topics.

The International Youth Leadership Finance Summit, launched by SAIF MF Program in 2013, aims to create a platform of collective learning and advancement for students of higher education institutions, and to improve their understanding on financial theories and practices through presentation, competition and face-to-face dialogue with business leaders and scholars in the financial sector.

This year's four-day summit, starting on January 27, gathered a host of experts and business leaders who have domain expertise in the financial sector. This year's summit put the spotlight on fintech, with topics ranging from robo-advisors, block-chain to data mining.

Panelists discussed the evolution of fintech industry and shared the latest investment trends in artificially intelligence and innovative players.

Zhao Yang, senior vice president of Kuai Niu, made in-depth speech. He said: "Kuai Niu position itself as an AI-enabled group that delivers technology solutions for upgrading financial sector. Our goal is to outpace financial services companies (rather than BATJ). All we need to do is to provide technologies and services better than other financial services firms."

"Startups and small-and-medium enterprises are nimbler than established ones," Zhao added.

Che Pinjue, expert partner of venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital China, said big companies' problem lies in the fact that too many opportunities and temptations distract them from identifying core issues.

"But a startup could lay laser focus on one field, and make the most out of it," said Che, who was former vice-president of Alibaba Group.

Helen Mu, senior vice president of China PnR and CEO of PnR Data, illustrated in her speech how Targeting at AI technologies are changing the service approaches of financial institutions, citing her companies' practices.

Reports show that fintech firms leverage more and more technology innovations to develop the financial services segment.

Funding of finfech startups increased at a compound annual growth rate of 41 percent over the last four years, with more than $40 billion in cumulative investment, according to a report released by PWC, an international accounting firm.

The report found that mobile money services might have the chance to grow into a $3 trillion payments volume market.

Eighty-two percent financial institutions expect to enhance fintech partnerships in the next three to five years. 77 percent of them are expected to increase internal innovations, while 56 percent of them have put disruption at the heart of their strategy.

China, the world's second largest economy, has leapfrogged ahead as one of the undoubted centers of global fintech innovation and adoption.

Between July 2015 and June 2016, Chinese fintech investments in the market soared to $8.8 billion, commanding the largest share of global investment in this sector, according to a report by Ernst & Young, a global accounting firm.

As this exponential growth continues, China looks set to continue to dominate the global fintech industry with a very strong domestic market, the report predicted.

Forty percent of Chinese consumers are using new payment methods compared to 4 percent in Singapore. Thirty-five percent of them are using fintech to access insurance products compared to 1-2 percent in many Southeast Asian markets. There are also significantly higher rates of fintech participation in wealth management and lending, said the report.

So far, Kuai Niu is the only company in the industry that reached cooperation with Chinese tech heavyweights BATJ in joint modeling. (BATJ is short for Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group, Tencent Holding Ltd and JD.com)

Kuai Niu attracted plenty of top talents from tech giants like Tencent, Baidu, Dianping, renowned financial institutions and law firms, which lays a solid foundation for the company's future development.

Capital investment poured in as the market is being bolstered by substantial government support for innovation. So far, Kuai Niu has successively obtained financing of B+round.

The group won awards including "Fintech Institution of the Year" issued by WEMONEY New Financial Summit organized by media outlet ifeng.com, "China Times Cicada Award - 2017 Fintech Brand Award", "Zhongguancun Internet Finance Research, China Internet Finance 30 Forum - 2017 China Most Competitive Fintech Brand Award ", and "16th China Internet Conference Industry Pioneer Award."

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2018/02-10/292297.shtml

 

[onebyone]

Mobile payments are just one of seven key markets for China’s booming fintech industry. Fintech is short for “financial technology” and refers to the application of technology within the financial services industry.

Other areas include online lending, consumer finance, online money-market funds, online insurance, personal financial management, and online brokerage. Of the 27 fintech “unicorns”—fintech startups with valuations exceeding $1 billion—in the world, nine are Chinese (including one from Hong Kong) and 12 are American.

There is a 48 page DBY bank and EY analysis of the Rise of Fintech in China.

China has leapfrogged ahead to become the undoubted center of global FinTech innovation and adoption – thanks to developments across multiple hubs, such as Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing, and Shenzhen. The speed, sophistication, and scale of development of China’s FinTech ecosystem have been at a level unmatched in more established markets.

Forty percent of consumers in China are using new payment methods compared to 4% in Singapore. Thirty-five percent are using FinTech to access insurance products compared to 1-2% in many Southeast Asian markets. There are also significantly higher rates of FinTech participation in wealth management and lending.

China’s per-capita disposable income remains low at $4,044 in 2017. However, China has a large middle class. In 2016, approximately 225 million households earned between $11,500 and $43,000 a year—a group rivaling the size of the entire U.S. population of 323 million. As of December 2017, China had 772 million internet users (55.6% of the population), or more than the entire population of Europe. More than 95 percent of China’s internet users—or 772 million people—access the web via a mobile device.

In 2016, Chinese consumers spent approximately $22.8 trillion (RMB 157.55 trillion) through mobile payment platforms, far exceeding the volume of transactions in the United States ($112 billion). Over 90 percent of that sum stemmed from mobile payment apps that belong to China’s two biggest tech conglomerates: Alibaba’s Alipay (54 percnt) and Tencent’s TenPay (37 percent).

China’s expanding outbound tourism industry offers an easy entry point for Chinese fintech firms. According to the U.N. World Tourism Organization, 135 million Chinese tourists spent a total of $261 billion abroad in 2016. This is far more than the United States, the world’s second-largest market for outbound tourism. In popular destinations such as Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, and Korea, WeChat Pay and Alipay are aggressively expanding their reach by forming local partnerships with places frequented by tourists, including airport duty-free shops, scenic spots, shopping malls, and restaurants.

Since 2015, Alibaba’s financial affiliate and Alipay’s operator, Ant Financial, has invested in a series of mobile wallet and other fintech startups in India, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and South Korea. Over the next four years, Alibaba expects more than half of its growth in users to come from overseas markets.

In 2017, Alibaba and Tencent have 92.8% of the mobile payment market: 53.7% of China’s mobile payment service customers use Alibaba’s Alipay, and 39.1% use Tencent Finance.

China is leapfrogging over credit card usage. The centralized and vertically integrated Alibaba and Tencent have enabled the rapid expansion of mobile payments in China.


China’s Mobile phone payments
2015 2.2 trillion yuan
2016 58.8 trillion yuan (US$9 trillion)
2017f 98.7 trillion yuan ($15.5 trillion)
2018f 165.9 trillion yuan ($26.3 trillion)

according to iResearch Consulting Group in China.

That is more than 90 times the size of the U.S. mobile payments market, according to Forrester Research.

Credit, debit and prepaid card transactions for six major card networks shot up a combined 13.3% from 2015 to 2016, and purchase volume rose 5.8% to $20.606 trillion, according to new global data from card and payment industry publisher The Nilson Report.

Nilson reported that Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club/Discover, American Express, China’s UnionPay and Japan’s JCB cards had 257.17 billion purchase transactions in 2016, This was about 12% (30.21 billion) more than in 2015.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/china-global-lead-in-fintech-and-mobile-payments.html

 

[TaiShang]

China has leapfrogged ahead to become the undoubted center of global FinTech innovation and adoption – thanks to developments across multiple hubs, such as Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing, and Shenzhen. The speed, sophistication, and scale of development of China’s FinTech ecosystem have been at a level unmatched in more established markets.

Forty percent of consumers in China are using new payment methods compared to 4% in Singapore. Thirty-five percent are using FinTech to access insurance products compared to 1-2% in many Southeast Asian markets. There are also significantly higher rates of FinTech participation in wealth management and lending.

Life is just too inconvenient in Mainland China if one does not get to use mobile payment platforms. It is like what personal driving was for the US. But, China also commands an auto market that double in size that of the US.

 

[JSCh]

Chinese oil shipment marks major blockchain breakthrough
Nicholas Moore
2018-04-03 15:37 GMT+8

Last Friday, a cargo ship arrived in Singapore from China’s eastern port of Quanzhou, carrying a shipment of gasoline.

Nothing extraordinary about that, right?

But this journey marked a historic landmark, becoming the first shipment of its kind to be processed entirely using blockchain technology.

According to Xinhua, this delivery, carried on a ship owned by Sinochem, was the first successful commodity trade between the two countries using blockchain at every stage.

Why is that so significant? Because blockchain is widely seen as the future of logistics, from domestic parcel deliveries all the way up to enormous cargo ships crossing oceans to transport energy between countries.

Sinochem is a major ‍state-owned conglomerate involved in energy, agriculture, chemicals, real estate and financial services. /VCG Photo

Why use blockchain?

Whether it’s business to business, business to consumer, consumer to consumer, or now country to country, the security, speed and efficiency that blockchain can provide have made the technology one of the big buzzwords of 2018.

In this latest transaction, two of the biggest benefits brought about by blockchain were the use of digital billing and smart contracts. Blockchain technology works as an unalterable ledger of information, meaning payments and contracts can be carried out online both securely and rapidly.

According to Xinhua’s report, blockchain reduced transaction costs in this case by as much as 30 percent. The efficiency brought about by blockchain is perhaps even more impressive – this oil shipment was processed twice as fast as traditional methods.

Will this kind of trade happen more often?

Why not? This particular deal saw the involvement of local customs officials, and the successful delivery and savings made on time and costs mean more international trade is likely to be conducted through blockchain.

In fact, this isn’t the first large international trade of goods carried out via the emerging technology.

In January a shipment of soybeans from the US to China was successfully made using blockchain, with the head of trade operations at American agricultural merchant Louis Dreyfus Co., Robert Serpollet telling Reuters “we noticed very significant efficiency gains… far beyond what we expected.”

In 2017, a report at the World Economic Forum pointed to how blockchain was being adopted by energy giants like BP and Shell, with the technology set to “completely transform how energy is bought and sold.”

 

[JSCh]

Zhejiang University to open first blockchain course in China
CGTN
2018-04-15 21:01 GMT+8
Updated 2018-04-15 22:51 GMT+8

As the demand for blockchain engineers and blockchain related business is only going to increase, Zhejiang University, one of China's top universities and a leader in the game in supplying blockchain-related courses, is set to offer its first for-credit course on “Blockchain And Digital Currency” this fall, focusing on the cutting edge technology behind cryptocurrency and related digital practices.

Zhejiang University, one of the elite universities in China, is located in east China's Hangzhou City. /VCG Photo

The course will illustrate the technical architecture and development technology behind current mainstream blockchain platforms like HyperHedge, offer case studies in blockchain application and development trends in cryptocurrency, according to the university.

The College of Computer Science of Zhejiang University established the blockchain research center on April 10 and it is set to work with students majoring in computer science, finance, and management, as well as mathematics.

“We cannot separate digital currency from blockchain, so we will introduce bitcoin, but no other cryptocurrencies. As a whole, the course will only concentrate on technology issues,” said Yang Xiaohu, a professor at Zhejiang University’s College of Computer Science.

As the syllabus shows, the course itself will not talk too much about the digital currency, and we really do not encourage students to focus on speculation, said Cai Liang, a deputy of the Blockchain Research Center.

In the US, some top MBA programs have been beefing up cryptocurrency courses to keep up with demand, especially from recruiters in venture capital, according to data from PitchBook, a private market financial platform.

Stanford’s business school, voted best in the world by the Financial Times this year, will add a full-time course in Cryptocurrency in May 2018.

Itamar Orr, a second-year student leading the charge to create more crypto-related classes, told CNBC that there are a few courses related to it at Stanford but none of them were continuous and many of the students will have to discuss blockchain at their prospective jobs.

He then rallied 12 classmates and sent a letter to the associates of the business school.

“It makes sense to teach it,” said Orr, “it gets you a competitive advantage. It is an extra hammer in your toolbox.”

“Any world-class program is going to equip students in this field to compete,” John Jacob, the executive director of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business said.

According to the faculty of the blockchain research center, Zhejiang University decided to open the class, partly because Hangzhou, the city in east China’s Zhejiang Province where the university located, has established itself as a rising center of blockchain technology and will build China’s first Blockchain Industrial Park.

Blockchain technology has been used in some tea parks in Hangzhou, the city which has established itself as a center of blockchain technology. /VCG Photo