Hello Fintech friends,

Hope you all had a great holiday season with friends and families!

China has unexpectedly lifted all the Covid restrictions in December and is going through a surge of covid cases. Why the government decided on this move remains unclear, but the bigger question for all of us is how will this impact China’s economy and its fintech sector.

Anyways, let’s jump into this month’s newsletter. Enjoy the read!

Yours,

Ning

News

• Futu abruptly postponed its HK listing a day before its scheduled debut on 31st Dec, 2022. On the same day, Chinese regulators issued bans on Futu and UP Fintech (also known as “Tiger Brokers” in Asia) from soliciting new mainland clients. The long-awaited penalty came more than a year after Chinese official media warned that New York-listed Futu and UP Fintech face regulatory risks due to the lack of licenses in China.
• Hong Kong launched first crypto ETFs.
• China is launching its first state-backed (NFT) marketplace called “China Digital Asset Trading Platform”.

• Following Credit Suisse’s recent layoff, Citi is shutting down its consumer bank business in China, affecting 1,200 employees.

Venture Financing

• Galaxy Payroll Group filed for IPO in the US, seeking to raise $24.8M.
• Ant Group led Hong Kong-based Aigens' $14m Series A funding round. Aigen is a food and beverage SaaS startup that focuses on food ordering and payment system digitalization.

Product & Partnership Launches

• Tencent Financial Technology launched its cross-border payment brand Tenpay Global, joining the heated cross-border payment war.
• Hong Kong’s ZA Bank launched a real-time currency exchange service.
• Digital insurer ZA International partnered with Hong Kong-based fintech HashKey to invest in digital assets, web3 and DLT.
• Germany-based digital payments processing company epay incorporated UnionPay QR code payments in Europe.
• Nova banka partnered with UnionPay to launch UnionPay’s virtual card solution in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• UnionPay International increased its card acceptance coverage in Saudi Arabia to 70% with its new Bank Albilad (BAB) partnership.
• Airwallex announced a few exciting partnerships: it partnered with Plaid to streamline ACH payments and augment authorisation of debits from bank accounts in the US; it also made big steps expanding to the travel sector by becoming TripActions Liquid’s payment provider and partnering with Agoda to offer business travel discounts.
• Alipay became the first payments platform in China to join the processing network for digital renminbi.

Licensing Updates

• Payoneer received in-principle regulatory approval to acquire Major Payment Institution License (MPI) from Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
• Hong Kong-based RD Technologies secured the Stored Value Facility (SVF) license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). Their main product RD Wallet is an B2B electronic payment platform for cross-border trade.

Interesting Read

• Fintech and ‘China’s Reinvention of Money’ By Mercy A. Kuo: a short article that presents you The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Chinese fintechs.