Hi Fintech friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of This Month in Fintech - China!

In this edition, you’ll read about China’s recent efforts in digital currency as well as the slowing growth of tech companies, in addition to financing and product news.

Voilà!

News of the month

• China continues its digital Yuan rollouts and metaverse experiments:
• Digital Yuan payments were introduced to the Ningbo Subway, Guangzhou Buses and the employee housing fund contribution program.
• Bank of China rolled out a new digital Yuan smart contract test program, allowing parents in Chengdu, Sichuan to enroll their kids in extracurricular lessons using the digital yuan.
• Bank of Communications announced its first financial inclusion loan using digital Yuan to an automobile tech startup in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.
• The Beijing government announces a two-year (2022-2024) development plan for metaverse. This plan demands all districts to continue building the technical infrastructure towards web3 and encouraging its usage in multiple fields, including education and tourism.
• Until August 2022, there are 7 provinces and 17 cities in China that have rolled out plans for metaverse development.
• Joined by Shanghai Shoemaker Warrior and Bilibili, Shanghai Data Exchange launches untradeable NFTs.

On top of the most recent news, China has already broadened digital currency to many other essential areas, including food delivery and e-commerce shopping since announcing the roll-out of digital Yuan in 2020.

Despite China making decent progress in broadening the potential usage areas of digital Yuan, I am always curious to see how hard it is going to be before digital Yuan is widely accepted. Considering that the Central Bank has made it clear that the digital Yuan will not provide full anonymity, and how few other economies have made significant progress, the practicality of full implementation of digital Yuan is still up for debate.

I would love to hear what you think of this topic, so please feel free to leave a comment or a PM if you want to discuss further!

The Stock Market

• The China Securities Regulatory Commission and U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board reached an agreement for cooperation on inspecting the audit work papers of U.S.- listed Chinese companies, which decreases the delisting risk for US-listed Chinese stocks. 

• Chinese mining giant Canaan doubles profits in the second quarter 2022 (Nearly $139M), despite the blanket crypto ban.

• The resurgence of Covid in China and the government’s zero-Covid policy have shown impact in tech companies’ most recent quarterly results:

  • Tencent posts its first-ever revenue decline (3% Year-over-Year decline in revenue and 56% decline in profit attributable to equity holders)

  • Alibaba posts its first-ever flat revenue growth

  • Weibo’s total net revenue dropped 22% to $450.2M

  • JD.com posts its slowest quarterly growth 

  • Lakala, China’s first 3rd party payment provider that goes IPO, posts its first ever decline in both revenue and profit

Venture financing

• Hotpay (Chinese:火薪云计算科技), a payroll,  benefits and employee management platform, closed an angel funding round of CNY 42.8 million ($6.2M), led by JUE Capital.
• Newbanker (Chinese:牛投邦科技), a digital wealth management solution provider, announced the closing of a Series C round, estimated to be worth tens of millions of CNY, from CICC Capital.
• Alibaba group continues with its Fintech investments in Southeast Asia by joining the lastest $250M round in Indonesian digital wallet Dana. This investment is through Alibaba-owned Lazada Group and will be used to support Dana’s expansion in its home country.
• SoftBank continues to cut its Alibaba stake to 14.6% from 23.7%.
• Baigebao, an insurtech, bags tens of millions of CNY in its A+ round.

Product launches

• Coty and Ant Group signed a strategic partnership agreement to continue expanding their travel retail business with Alipay.
• WePay and Alipay teamed up on a small-scale trial for credit card cash advances.
• LianLian Global and London-based FinTech Uncapped announced a strategic partnership to provide online merchants in the U.S. and U.K. with access to financing through the LianLian Global platform.
• China’s e-commerce marketplace Pinduoduo expands to the US, competing with another Chinese e-commerce retailer, SHEIN.