Visa buys stake in fast-growing fintech group Klarna
Visa is taking a stake in Klarna in a sign of the Swedish fintech’s growing presence in online payments. A week after Klarna became the largest European fintech to receive a banking licence, Visa said it was making a strategic investment through the purchase of a stake of less than 10 per cent as well as offering a future partnership. The price paid by Visa was not revealed. Klarna has become a big participant in Germany and the Nordics for online payments, allowing its 60m customers to buy goods on the internet quickly and pay only after receiving them. It is looking to make a similar splash in the UK […]
A new way to raise money: The Initial Coin Offering
The digital currency ecosystem has had a crazy year. The Bitcoin market capitalization has grown from $11 billion on June 5, 2016 to almost $47 billion USD on June 5, 2017. Negative news during that time included a 120,000 BTC heist from Bitfinex, worth $65m then and $350m now. The Winklevoss twins sought to create an exchange traded fund dealing in Bitcoin, but they were denied. Positive events were much broader, including Japan recognizing the coin as a legal payment method, Russia reversing their prior stand against Bitcoin, and Australia adjusting its policies to remove a double taxation problem for those accepting digital currencies. Now a new phenomenon is sweeping […]
How Thailand could become Southeast Asia’s next Fintech Hub
Increased adoption of blockchain technologies, Big Data and artificial intelligence would enable Thai fintechs to enhance the products and services available to existing customers but also to serve the country’s under- and unbanked consumers as well. Omise, a payment management platform founded by Jun Hasegawa and Ezra Don Harinsut, is Thai fintech’s greatest success story to date. In 2016, it raised a $17.5 million Series B round and currently operates in Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore. It’s an aspirational story that is indicative of the possibilities for other fintech startups in Thailand, given the right conditions. “Fintech startups have the potential [to] stimulate innovation across not just the Thai financial services […]
HK, Singapore rivalry hobbling Asia in $100b Fintech race
Asia’s competitiveness in fintech is being undermined by the rivalry among the region’s financial centers that has created regulatory complexity and uncertainty, a financial lobby group has warned. Governments across Asia—most notably Hong Kong and Singapore—have launched a raft of initiatives to grab a slice of the $100 billion invested in financial technology globally but the regulatory hotch-potch is making it tough for firms to scale up, the Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said in a report on Friday, PTI reported. “The regulatory landscape is very fragmented and a lot of the initiatives, though well-intentioned, are not necessarily well thought through,” said Mark Austen, CEO of ASIFMA. The […]
Addepar raises $140 million in Series D funding
Addepar, a technology provider and operating system designed to cater to financial firms, announced that it has managed to raise $140 million in a series D round co-led by 8VC, Valor Equity Partners, and QuantRes founder Harald McPike. The significant amount of funding follows the developer’s increased growth, as in under a year and a half it has more than doubled the value of assets on its platform, from $300 billion to $650 billion. A correlation has been noted, with valued wealth managers adopting the software. The new funding will assist the company in investing in R&D, the expansion of the platform and technology oriented services in order to be […]
Kasikorn Bank creates $30 million Fintech Fund
Kasikorn Bank has opened up a $30 million fund to invest in to Fintech startups, thus exemplifying the banks attitude to embrace disruptive technologies. The rapid technological developments within the financial industry has opened up new dimensions in the market, changing how customers think. People are moving towards more digital options in an attempt to improve both the quality and ease of different services. Governments are moving to acclimate laws to better encompass these new methods for business. As a result, consumers are now experiencing faster, cheaper, more secure, and more convenient services than ever before. Kasikorn Bank realizes that in order to survive in this new market, they must […]
Bitcoin price crosses $3,000 milestone to set new all-time high
The price of bitcoin topped $3,000 for the first time in history today, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI). After spending much of the last week seeking direction in the $2,700 to $2,900-range, the average price of bitcoin across major international exchanges edged up over this threshold finally at roughly 17:00 UTC. The new record comes at a time when alternative digital assets are seeing robust inflows, with ethereum’s ether token setting a new all-time high of more than $300 today as well. Indeed, analysts spoke to the ongoing broadening of the cryptocurrency market as a tide that is benefitting bitcoin. “The inflows into ‘alts’ are greater than […]
Coinbase seeks to raise $1 Bln to expand and go beyond Bitcoin
Demand for Bitcoin has once again gone up with the price of the digital currency continuing to hit all-time highs. Cryptocurrency exchange company Coinbase has been growing strong along with this demand in order to make more improvements and gain more transactions on their end. Coinbase has recently been in discussions with potential investors, according to Reuters. The company is looking to raise a total of $1 bln for their next funding. While Coinbase, according to its blog, has grown four times since January 2017, its co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong is looking to expand and cater beyond Bitcoin. The growing demand comes from the increase in new cryptocurrency exchange […]
