IBS Journal September 2016


45


same period. However, deal volume remains higher in North America and Europe, as the Asia-Pacific increase comes on the back of a few select FinTechs in China. There have been 192 deals in Asia-Pacific so far this year, 509 in North America and 230 in Europe.


The top 10 deals in Asia-Pacific occurred in China and Hong Kong, accounting for 90% of overall Asia-Pacific investments and valued at $8.75 billion. In total, China and Hong Kong startups have pulled in $9 billion so far in 2016. Ant Financial Services Group, the FS affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba that operates China’s online-payments platform Alipay, closed a $4.5 billion fundraising round in April. Ping An-backed Lufax, which has started using the name Lu.com, wrapped a $1.2 billion round of fundraising in January. In that same month, China’s second largest e-commerce company, JD.com, raised $1 billion in new funding for its consumer finance subsidiary, JD Finance. In recent years, major Alibaba affiliates and China’s biggest social network company, Tencent, have also invested in other smaller startups, such as Fenqile, a micro-loan site which literally means “happy instalments,” Qufenqi, an electronics retailer that lets buyers pay in monthly instalments, and India’s One97 Communications, a mobile internet company whose Paytm is its flagship brand.


$1.8 BILLION…It has been given the greenlight in a number of countries, but the $1.8 billion merger


between US-based ATM giant Diebold and German rival Wincor Nixdorf is facing an investigation in the UK. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it will be forced to move unless the companies offer undertakings to address competition concerns.


A statement issued by the watchdog noted that, “in its initial investigation, the CMA has found that both parties compete closely in the supply of customer-operated ATMs in the UK…At present there is only one other credible competitor supplying such ATMs in the UK (NCR), and there is limited prospect of other companies entering the UK market in the near future. The CMA has therefore found that the merger could lead to a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in the supply of customer-operated ATMs in the UK.”


$8 BILLION…A combination of in-app purchases and website retail payments is set to drive annual spend via


Apple Pay and Android Pay to $8 billion in 2018, up from $540 million this year, according to Juniper Research. The integration of OS-Pay into apps will be a no brainer for developers looking to reduce buyer friction, where password entry on smartphones remains cumbersome. Staples, for example, has already reported that over 30% of its iOS app users make in-app purchases through Apple Pay. Meanwhile, despite the continued contraction of the consumer tablet market, more than 85% of remote goods payments are forecast to be made using mobile devices in 2021.


Apple has signalled its intent to offer Apple Pay to online merchants by the end of 2016, offering a similar payment mechanism to PayPal. Juniper Research anticipates that this move will be welcomed by most merchants as long as integration into their storefronts is made simple and rates are competitive. It also expects the entry of Android Pay into this space once further country expansion has been achieved. This will boost the market further in terms of merchants who may have been undecided where Apple Pay is concerned. These OS-Pay solutions are likely to pose a threat to PayPal’s Western dominance, although this is unlikely to happen within the next five years.


80+… Hyperledger Project, the developer of an open standard for distributed ledgers that publicly launched


last year, now has more than 80 members, following the addition of 17 new organisations. The latest members are: Cloud Security Alliance, Energy Blockchain Laboratory, Global Peersafe Technology Corp., Inuit Foundation – University of Rome “Tor Vergata,” Intuit, Investrata Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship (IFSE), iRootech Technology Co., MIRACL UK, Netki, Nxt Foundation, Orange Magic Cube (GoX Tech), Samsung SDS, Sany Heavy Group Co., Tai Cloud Corp., Union Mobile Pay E-Commerce Co., Wutongtree and Yunphant Blockchain.


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