BitFury Group announced $30 million deal with Credit China Fintech
Blockchain infrastructure provider BitFury Group announced on Thursday a deal with Hong Kong-listed fintech company Credit China Fintech Holdings to set up a joint venture that will focus on promoting the technology in China. As part of the deal, Credit China Fintech will invest $30 million in BitFury shares and the setting up of the joint venture. The joint venture will be used to sell BitFury’s bitcoin mining equipment. BitFury Group provides hardware and software around blockchain technology and this will be its first major venture in China. Blockchain refers to the technology underlying the crypto-currency bitcoin and works like a huge, decentralized ledger that records every transaction made on […]
Ayannah Named Best in Show At Next Money Fintech Finals 2017
Philippine-based startup Ayannah, a provider of affordable and accessible digital financial services for the world’s unbanked, was named Best in Show by the judges at the Fintech Finals 2017 (FF17) pitch competition at PMQ in Hong Kong on Thursday night. The second annual event, which was held on January 18th-19th, was sponsored by Visa and was part of the StartmeupHK Festival. Besides Ayannah, other finalists of the Fintech Final 2017 include Tapview, MyCash Online, Dataholics, Darc Matter, Bugwolf, PolicyPal, BluePan, Crowd Realty, BugClipper, and Bambu. To read more, please click on the link below… Source: Ayannah Named Best in Show At Next Money Fintech Finals 2017 – Crowdfund Insider
US fintech SoFi targets mortgage lending in Australia
One of the best-funded financial technology companies in the US, SoFi, is preparing to launch in Australia to offer mortgages in direct competition with the banks. In recent days, the San Francisco-based SoFi has used LinkedIn to advertise for a manager of mortgage operations, based in Sydney, along with an operations manager and a marketing manager. The pending opening in Sydney would be SoFi’s first office outside the US, where it has funded more than $US7 billion in student loan refinancing, personal loans and mortgages since it was founded in 2011. Over the past two years, SoFi, which used to be called Social Finance, has raised $1 billion in new […]
Fintech startup Squirrel is crowdfunding fresh investment on SyndicateRoom
A fintech startup whose app helps people better manage their money is seeking fresh funding via crowdfunding. Squirrel is seeking to raise £400,000 on equity crowdfunding platform SyndicateRoom, with £100,000 of that already promised by angel investor Jos Evans. The two-year-old startup offers users a bank account and budgeting features and already has more than 5,000 users and £2.9m managed through the app. It will use the new funds to expand its service, particularly focusing on the students and pensioners. “Engaging online investors in a fundraise has been a route that we’ve been considering for some time,” said founder and chief executive Mutaz Qubbaj. “However, it was crucial to reach […]
Funding Circle: A $100m vote of confidence in the UK’s Peer-to-Peer Lending industry
The news that Funding Circle has raised another $100m from a group of well-respected institutional investors is welcome news for the peer-to-peer lending sector, which has been showing signs of vulnerability of late. The funding round, led by Accel, and supported by investors including Baillie Gifford, DST Global, Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Rocket Internet, Sands Capital Ventures, Temasek and Union Square Ventures, cements Funding Circle’s position as the leading online peer-to-peer marketplace in Europe. To coincide with the announcement, Funding Circle also said yesterday that its total lending to small businesses globally has now reached £2.5bn – including £1.1bn of advances made last year alone. The latest equity investment takes […]
Australian FinTech will exceed AUD $4 Billion by 2020
A new report has found that FinTech revenue in Australia is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 76.3 percent and exceed A$4 billion by 2020. The research, Australian Fintech, Forecast for 2020, found that this increase was down to a reduction in taxes on investments in startups, tech-savvy digital individuals, and a rise in mobile payments. According to Research and Markets, in 2015 the Australian FinTech market produced A$247.2 million with 2016 generating further growth and 2017 predicted to continue the upward trend. The research found that there are three areas that financial technology services are focusing on in Australia that will grow by 2020: […]
UK robo-advisor Munnypot goes live
Munnypot, a new service offering clear, affordable online financial advice to all is live from today. Munnypot’s founders aim to help close Britain’s financial advice gap, which affects 16 million people1, by making high quality advice available to everyone. Munnypot is an online savings and investment service giving anyone straightforward automated financial advice in a language they can understand, at a fraction of the cost of most financial advisers. The service requires a minimum investment of £25 per month and/or a £250 single investment amount. It provides an intuitive WhatsApp style ‘chat-based’ user-interface that advises people on their savings and investment decisions. Conversational and jargon-free questions, coupled with state of […]
With TravelersBox, turn foreign change at airports into digital currency and iTunes credit
It’s a dilemma that travelers have faced for decades: You’re heading home from a foreign country with a handful or two of spare change. It’s not enough to exchange or buy something at the airport, so what do you do with it? TravelersBox hopes to answer that question. The company has kiosks placed in 10 countries around the world, including Turkey, Georgia, Italy, the Philippines, Israel, and Japan. Users feed their spare change into the machine and can choose to have it converted into a number of useful digital items, from iTunes credit to Starbucks gift cards to PayPal deposits. TravelersBox machines aren’t the first of their kind. In 2015, […]