Australia weathers fintech slump
Global investment in fintech companies almost halved last year as “froth” comes out of the burgeoning industry and investors wait to see if they can successfully disrupt incumbents such as banks and insurers, according to a new report. Fintech investment funding declined to $US24.7 billion ($32.17bn) last year from a bumper $US46.7bn in 2015, driven by fewer merger and acquisitions, and private equity investments, KPMG found. However, the less mature Australian fintech industry bucked the trend as investment soared to a record high of $626 million last year, up from $185m in 2015 and $461m in 2014. The increase was powered by Champ Private Equity’s acquisition of Pepperstone, Stirling Products’ […]
Ant Financial invests $200 million in Kakao Pay to expand into South Korea
Alibaba’s financial services affiliate Ant Financial is aggressively pushing to expand its presence across the globe. Today, the company is making their way into Korea by driving a massive $200 million investment in Kakao Pay, the soon-to-launch fin-tech subsidiary of widely popular messaging service Kakao Talk. This capital infusion, as rightly put in the blog post, is part of the company’s larger strategic partnership across the globe. Ant Financial leads digital payments wallet AliPay and Alibaba’s digital banking services and boasts of over 450 million users on its platform. Now, it plans to expand its digital banking services to South Korea by merging them with this upcoming fin-tech entity at […]
Breaking Paytm’s monopoly, Reliance Jio announces strategic partnership with Uber
If you were taking the suite of services Reliance launched with Jio, lightly — here is a wake up call for you. Reliance Jio Infocomm has announced a a strategic partnership with Uber that will enable users to pay for rides, through their Jio Money wallets. This breaks Paytm’s monopoly, which until now was the only third-party wallet that could be used to directly pay for cabs hailed using the Uber platform. Speaking on the topic, Madhu Kannan, Chief Business Officer for India and Emerging Markets at Uber, said: Digital payments have become part of our everyday lives and by integrating JioMoney as a payment option, our riders will have […]
Japan’s largest bank is testing digitized checks on a Blockchain in Singapore
The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan’s largest bank, has chosen blockchain technology as the core infrastructure toward testing the digitization of checks using Singapore’s Fintech-friendly regulatory sandbox installed by the country’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore. First announced last year, the Proof of Concept (PoC) testing is the result of a joint endeavor between the bank and major Japanese conglomerate Hitachi. The two companies developed a blockchain-based infrastructure to issue, transfer and collect electronic checks. With the PoC testing, the bank issued and settled checks while the Hitachi Group’s companies in Singapore received the electronic checks and then deposited the funds. “The project is to digitalize entire check […]
Global investment platform DarcMatter receives ‘Best Fintech Solution’ award
Global investment platform for alternative payments DarcMatter announced that it has received ‘Best Fintech Solution’ award for Small & Startup Funds at the HFM U.S. Hedge Fund Technology Awards that was held on 13 February 2017 in New York. The HFM U.S. Hedge Fund Technology Awards recognizes and selects those software providers that are serving hedge fund industry and have proven exceptional customer service and innovative product development in the fintech ecosystem. DarcMatter was selected by the panel of judges, as it is focused on offering a technology platform for hedge fund managers in order to directly and more transparently access LPs for streamlined and efficient capital raise. “We are […]
Amazon Is Set to Rule the Fintech Game: Andreessen Horowitz VC
If any technology company makes a major move into payments and banking, the most obvious candidates are Apple and Google. After all, both have a lot of experience thanks to the Apple Pay and Google Wallet functions, and both have already persuaded hundreds of millions of customers to share their credit card information. But in the long run, it’s likely to be another tech giant, Amazon, that captures the market for Internet payment services, according to Alex Rampell, a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Rampell explained that Amazon is more inclined than its rivals […]
PayPal acquires Vancouver-based TIO Networks in $304m deal
PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) is acquiring Vancouver-based TIO Networks in a deal worth $304 million. The companies announced the definitive sales agreement Tuesday (February 14), which will see PayPal pay $3.35 per share in cash — a 22.6% premium above its 20-trading day average price. TIO Networks chairman and CEO Hamed Shahbazi told Business In Vancouver he was “very excited” his company was becoming a part of the PayPal family. “It’s an incredible company,” he said. “Dan Schulman, the [PayPal] CEO, has a tremendous vision that really aligns well with us and his vision of financial inclusion is one we think gives us an opportunity to really amplify the scale […]
Fintech is driving growth and opportunities in Asia Pacific
According to analysis by KPMG International and CB Insights, US$4.6 billion in venture capital-backed fintech funding went to the Asia-Pacific region at the end of Q3 2016. Much of this investment went to China, driven by high mobile internet adoption rates and a tech savvy-millennial user base. Asian fintech sectors predicted to get VC interest this year include payments, regtech, data & analytics, and mobile. Adoption of mobile money and mobile payments in Asia will see the market encompass a range of demographics, from Chinese millennials with WeChat, to Sri Lankan retirees receiving pensions onto their Dialog eZCash mobile money account. Across Asia, fintech driven by regulatory ‘sandboxes’ are enabling financial institutions […]
