A photo of Yellow Mountains. Photo credit: Ning Ye
Hello Fintech friends,
Welcome to the January edition of This Month in Fintech - China!
Lunar new year fell in January this year. After 3 years of tight pandemic controls, I was able to celebrate this new year with my family in my hometown (The Yellow Mountains). I included a photo of the mountains that I took during a hike.
Typically, the new year holiday will slow down businesses in China. Not this year though! A lot has happened from Jack Ma ceding control of Ant Group to tons of new product launches, it is quite an eventful month for Chinese fintechs.
Please enjoy :)
Yours,
Ning
News of the Month
Jack Ma is giving up control of Ant Group, following a $1 billion fine as part of a restructuring ordered by the regulators. Ma previously held over 50% of voting rights, and his shares will now fall to 6.2%. It has sparked speculations around what’s next for Ant Group or China’s tech industry.
The biggest question is around whether this could revive Ant’s IPO plan. At the moment, the company says it does not have any IPO plans. A common view on this is: Ma’s stepping down does not guarantee the success of Ant’s IPO, but serves as one of the prerequisites for it. Bloomberg wrote a comprehensive piece covering most of the IPO related topics on Ant.
Around the same time when this happened, the government approved Ant’s consumer finance expansion plan, sending positive signals.
Ant Group’s canceled IPO marked the beginning of the Chinese government’s crackdown on tech giants. Now with Ma giving up control of Ant Group, this 2-year long process has seemingly come to an end. Investors and entrepreneurs remain cautious in China’s fintech sector, despite the government vowing to support private companies.
Other News
JPMorgan and Standard Chartered obtained Chinese regulatory approval to expand operations in China.
PayPal China received regulatory approval to increase registered capital to enable further Chinese expansion.
Airwallex plans to hire 500 people worldwide as tech giants make cuts.
Hong Kong will propose a set of crypto tokens for retail trading.
Venture Financing
Chinese auto insurtech firm Cheche to list on Nasdaq via SPAC.
Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming developer Animoca Brands plans to double down investment during a crypto winter.
Product & Partnership Launches
Airwallex has partnered with American Express to allow customers to accept Amex payments through payment links, Xero invoice payments and e-commerce shopping extensions.
Hong Kong-based money service operator Windsor First and Currencycloud collaborated to launch a new multi-currency account solution to help with Windsor First clients’ international payments.
China Mobile, the parent company of Pakistan telecommunications network Zong 4G, launched its first digital payments solution ‘PayMax’.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has announced the launch of a new function on its digital yuan app, to allow Android NFC users to make offline digital payments.
Hong Kong-based digital payment platform Yedpay expands to ASEAN through partnerships with Venture Cap, Easylink and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Hong Kong challenger bank Livi Bank launched the first cross-border QR payment method for mainland consumers.
