According to a report by Forbes, data from CB Insights shows that Fintech financing in Asia-Pacific doubled to $11.2 billion in 2016, from $5.2 billion in 2015.

Global investment in fintech were $23.2 billion. The growth in total value of fintech investments were in large part due to large investments in China and Hong Kong, where just 3% of the deals contributed for nearly 43% of total fintech investment globally.

This year is shaping up to be another important year in the Chinese fintech sector. The report emphasized a deal from earlier in January, where Ant Financial acquired Texas-based Moneygram and in February invested $200 million in Kakao Pay, a mobile finance subsidiary coming from South Korean m-commerce platform Kakao. Dragon Victory International Limited, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Qudian Inc. , Baidu, Inc., Yirendai Ltd.

An article by The Economist discusses how did fintech market get so big in China?

“The short answer is that it was the right thing at the right time in the right place. Even after Chinese banks tucked away their abacuses, they remained remarkably unsophisticated for a high-speed economy. People accumulated wealth but had few good outlets for investing. Entrepreneurs were full of ideas but struggled to get startup loans. Consumers were spending but needed wads of cash to do so.

New technology offered a way to vault over these many contradictions. During the past decade, China became the country with more internet users than any other-more than 700m,”

The Economist explains.

Dragon Victory International Limited  announced Breaking News that, “its ordinary shares will commence trading on The NASDAQ Capital Market on October 20, 2017 under the ticker symbol ‘LYL’.

To celebrate Dragon Victory’s senior exchange listing, the Company plans to participate in a Market Bell Ceremony at the NASDAQ MarketSite at Times Square in New York City on a date to be determined.”

“Listing on The NASDAQ Capital Market is a significant milestone for our Company and our shareholders, as well as our clients,”

stated Mr. Yu Han, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dragon Victory.

“We have accomplished a great deal to qualify for this prestigious opportunity to trade on NASDAQ, and it allows more investors to consider holding LYL shares in their portfolios. We believe listing on NASDAQ will improve the Company’s brand awareness, increase transparency through our regulatory disclosures, and ultimately position Dragon Victory for long-term, profitable growth.”

Dan McClory, Head of China and Equity Capital Markets at Boustead Securities, LLC, LYL’s Lead Underwriter, stated,

“Congratulations to Chairman Han and his team for successfully completing their IPO. Trading on NASDAQ gives Dragon Victory International Limited access to global capital and a diversified investor base. We look forward to seeing LYL’s ongoing trading on NASDAQ,”

McClory concluded. On September 15, 2017, LYL announced the closing of its initial public offering (‘IPO’) of 1,421,394 ordinary shares at a price to the public of $6.00 per share for a total of $8,528,363 in gross proceeds before expenses, underwriting discount and commissions.

About Dragon Victory International Limited – Incorporated in 2015 and headquartered in Hangzhou, Dragon Victory International Limited (“LYL” or the “Company”) offers reward-based crowdfunding opportunities in China to entrepreneurs and funding sources through a fast growing reward-based crowdfunding platform.

The online reward-based crowdfunding platform, 5etou, at http://www.5eatou.cn and designed to enable small and medium sized companies, start-up companies and idea generators to raise funding from participants through the Internet. The Company also provides quality business incubation services and financial services to entrepreneurs and business entities with funding needs utilizing our crowdfunding platform. More information is available at http://www.dvintinc.com .”

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. subsidiary Ant Financial Services Group is dedicated to creating an open, shared credit system and financial services platform through technology innovations, and to provide consumers and small businesses with safe and convenient inclusive financial services globally. Businesses operated by Ant Financial Services Group include Alipay, Ant Fortune, Zhima Credit and MYbank.

On July 10th, Stripe announced a new global partnership with Alipay, operated by Ant Financial, unlocking the Chinese consumer market for Stripe-powered businesses around the world.

“In our aim to get to a global cashless society, Alipay has evolved from a digital wallet into a global lifestyle enabler for Chinese consumers and travelers far beyond Chinese borders,”

said Souheil Badran, President of Alipay for North America.

“We’re excited to strengthen our partnership with Stripe to connect globally-minded Chinese consumers with hundreds of thousands of Stripe-powered businesses around the world.”

Qudian Inc.  is a leading provider of online small consumer credit in China. We use big data-enabled technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to transform the consumer finance experience in China.

With the mission to use technology to make personalized credit accessible, we target hundreds of millions of young, mobile-active consumers in China who need access to small credit for their discretionary spending, but are underserved by traditional financial institutions due to lack of traditional credit data and operational inefficiencies of traditional financial institutions.

On October 18, 2017, the company announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 37,500,000 American depositary shares (“ADSs”) at a price to the public of US$24.00 per ADS for a total offering size of approximately US$900.00 million, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs. Of the total 37,500,000 ADSs offered, 35,625,000 ADSs are being offered by the Company and 1,875,000 ADSs are being offered by selling shareholders.

Baidu, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. Baidu aims to make a complex world simpler through technology. One of Baidu’s transaction services, Baidu Wallet provides online and mobile payment services and enables our users to complete closed loop transactions in a seamless manner.

Through integration with Baidu products and other third-party products, Baidu Wallet fulfills payment needs in a wide array of scenarios, including purchases of movie tickets, services provided by Baidu Nuomi, takeout delivery and daily commutes via Uber. According to an announcement by Paypal Holdings Inc. on July 26th, PayPal announced a partnership with Baidu to allow Chinese consumers to pay with Baidu Wallet and PayPal at PayPal’s millions of merchants outside of China.

Yirendai Ltd. is a leading online consumer finance marketplace in China connecting investors and individual borrowers. The Company provides an effective solution to address largely underserved investor and individual borrower demand in China through an online platform that automates key aspects of its operations to efficiently match borrowers with investors and execute loan transactions.

On June 15, 2017, the company announced that it was awarded the Best P2P Lending Platform in China Award at The Future of Finance Summit held in Singapore on June 8-9, 2017. Yirendai is the first FinTech company in China to receive this prestigious reward. In addition, Yirendai received a P2P Audit Certification at the Summit. The Asian Banker introduced the P2P Audit Award at this year’s summit to help maintain industry standards as well as help customers, investors and regulators to identify credible players in the digital world.

This article first appeared on prnewswire.com, Featured image via Pixabay