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Real Estate Source Platform Infabode Makes Another Return to Seedrs; Now Seeking to Raise £300,000 in Funding.

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Less then a year and a half after raising £120,568 through its previous equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs, real estate source platform, Infabode, has made a return to the funding platform to raise an additional £300,000.

As previously reported, Infabode connects its community of users with industry information from the real estate sector on one customizable online platform. Infabode’s platform more than 40,000 users, 900 content providers, and hundreds of thousands of pages of insights on global real estate markets.

“Infabode aims to reduce the amount of time people spend trying to access key information from the Real Estate industry and allows its community of members to customise the content that they have access to. Companies provide their industry information and data to Infabode in exchange for the increased marketing reach. The platform boasts over 400 industry partners and thousands of pages of industry data.”

Infabode stated its business plan over the past five years is the following:

  • Phase One: Get all the best content in the industry on one platform.
  • Phase Two: Get the industry using its platform to access this information.
  • Phase Three: Monetization.

Infabode then noted:

“For our users it enables them to analyse everything happening in their sectors and for our content providers it increases the reach of their insights and brand.”

Funds from the Seedrs campaign will be used to continue the growth and development of the Infabode platform. The company is offering 20% discount through the funding round, which is set to close mid-October.

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Cross-Border Payments are on the “Cusp of Transformation” According to Executive from Fintech Ripple

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Marcus Treacher, the SVP of Customer Success at American Fintech Ripple, notes that the world’s cross-border payments market is highly fragmented. But he claims that international transactions are now being redefined by “the power of ISO standardization” and the innovative technology approach of RippleNet, which is a “decentralized” network of global financial institutions that are conducting transactions through Ripple’s payment networks.

Treacher reveals that cross-border payments are “on the cusp of transformation.” He claims that blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) and digital assets such as XRP can potentially offer a more “frictionless” global payments solution.

He notes:

“At Ripple, our mission is to remove friction from global payments and enable money to move the same way that information does today—digitally and instantly. We work with banks and payment providers to modernize legacy systems using blockchain and digital assets to make sending money around the world easier, faster and more reliable.”

He adds that Ripple’s goal is to offer real-time connections to RippleNet to banks and payment service providers. Treacher confirms that RippleNet follows the ISO2022 standard, allowing these organizations to send and receive funds on behalf of their clients and also between each other “immediately, with finality and transparency.” He claims that funds can be transferred quickly regardless of how much money is being sent or the currencies being used.

Treacher also mentions that being able to send money quickly across borders is not the only problem we need to address. He explains that funds must go to the intended or correct accounts in the right country and “at the right time to allow payments to actually flow.”

He adds:

“This need to pre-fund accounts is called the Liquidity Problem, and is one of the causes of hold-ups with cross-border payments. … Ripple has developed … On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) which uses … XRP to enable funds to be sent to destination accounts immediately – literally on-demand, rather than days beforehand.”

He claims that XRP is quite useful for conducting faster cross-border payments. It makes the process more affordable and overall more efficient, Treacher says. He explains that XRP is meant to serve as a bridge between two different fiat currencies, which should ensure that funds are transferred and received “in a given geography’s or user’s local currency instantaneously.”

He claims RippleNet is able to reduce the settlement period on international payments from 3 business days to only 3 seconds, which makes the process “truly frictionless.”

Treacher says that the crypto-asset market has been dominated or monopolized by high-net-worth individuals and “crypto enthusiasts.” But he claims that there are now an increasing number of indicators that show that institutional investors might be entering this market. He confirms that crypto markets recently set all-time highs in futures contracts’ open interest.

He points out that 60% of insitutions responding to Fidelity’s survey said they’d consider allocating a certain percentage of their porfolio to digital assets. He claims that this is a significant number when we consider the survey was completed before the COVID-19 outbreak. While not specifically mentioning Bitcoin (BTC), which Ripple considers a major threat and competitor to its business, Treacher notes that digital assets have been performing as well, if not better, than precious metals like gold.

He argues that banks and other financial service providers that are able to bring cross-border payment methods “into the modern world and provide a truly frictionless experience that reduces the many pain points consumers are facing today will emerge as leaders in tomorrow’s global payment industry.”

It’s true that Fintech firms like TransferWise are providing reliable and cost-effective ways for individuals and businesses to transfer funds, globally. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) has emerged as an increasingly popular way to transfer digital value in a peer to peer and permissionless manner.

However, Ripple has been the subject of several major lawsuits, with many XRP holders alleging that the company has been driving down the token’s price by selling large quantities of it, so that it can fund its business operations. During the past few years, the XRP market cap had briefly overtaken Ethereum (ETH) to become the second-largest digital asset by market share, trailing on Bitcoin (BTC).

But Ethereum’s market cap has now surged past the $40 billion mark, while XRP has dropped to fourth place (behind Tether’s USDT) with a market cap of only around $11 billion. While it’s true that Ripple has entered some notable partnerships, such as with MoneyGram, it remains unclear why a token like XRP is necessary when trying to send cross-border payments.

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China: WeiyangX Fintech Review

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CBIRC: Increasing Efforts to Crack Down on New Types of Illegal Commercial Insurance Activities

Recently, the Anti-Illegal Financial Activities Bureau of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) published an article entitled “Analysis of Illegal Commercial Insurance Activities and Regulatory Suggestions” in “Observation of Insurance Risk”.

As noted in the article, with the advancement of internet technology and third-party payment in recent years, the technical threshold for the establishment of related websites and APP platforms has been greatly reduced. This has led to the rapid development of illegal commercial insurance, and many third-party network platforms of information technology intermediary services are engaged in illegal insurance intermediary businesses. Therefore, in order to better protect the consumers, the article called for clarifying the regulatory body and regulatory standards for these new types of illegal online businesses in the future. (Source: Observation of Insurance Risk)

China’s Digital Economy Reaches ¥35.8 Trillion in 2019

On September 10th, the Cyberspace Administration of China released the “Report of Digital China Development (2019)”.

According to the report, China’s digital economy registered ¥35.8 trillion ($5.07 trillion) in 2019, accounting for 36.2% of China’s GDP and 67.7% of GDP growth.

The structure of the digital economy continues to be optimized and upgraded, and the added value of industrial digitalization accounts for 80.2% of the digital economy. (Source: Cyberspace Administration of China)

Jniu Technology Completes ¥35 million Pre-A Round of Financing

On September 11th, smart insurance brokerage service provider, Jniu Technology, was reported to have secured a ¥35 million Pre-A round of financing. The investment was provided by Sequoia Capital China and Eminence Ventures.

Established in 2019, Jniu empowers traditional life insurance companies’ personal insurance and insurance intermediary markets through agent operations, and help establish digital operating systems, distribution systems and supply-chain capabilities. (Source: ebrun)

Lithuania Plans to Establish Bilateral Fintech Cooperation with Hainan Province

On September 9th, an academic seminar themed “China-Europe Digital Securities and Open Finance” was held in Hainan Resort Software Community (RSC). Officers from Hainan RSC introduced the development of the park and related policies of Hainan Free Trade Port.

The Hainan FTP will offer zero tariffs, low tax rates, simplified taxation and other policy supports for trade, investment, cross-border capital flows, transportation, and safe and orderly flow of data.

Sankauskas Andrius, Senior Commercial Counselor of the Republic of Lithuania in China, said that this is in line with the EU’s policy and the cooperation between the two sides will have a more consistent policy environment.

In April 2021, Lithuania will lead global fintech companies to come to Hainan to participate in the “Hainan Fintech Week”, and plan to establish a bilateral fintech cooperation relationship between Lithuania and Hainan. (Source: Hainan Daily)

The above is a weekly synopsis of the biggest stories on Fintech in China provided by WeiyangX, part of Tsinghua University, in partnership with Crowdfund Insider.

WeiyangX is the most influential website focusing on Fintech in China. The site covers the latest news, industry data analysis, business practices, and in-depth Fintech cases in Fintech. WeiyangX is incubated by Fintech Lab. Founded by Tsinghua University’s People’s Bank of China (PBC) School of Finance in 2012, the Fintech Lab is the first and leading research entity dedicated to leading best practices, promoting interdisciplinary innovation, and encouraging entrepreneurship in the field of fintech through scientific research and innovative project incubation.

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