Sector Updates

Online lenders are growing their presence in Washington with the hire of lobbyist Nat Hoopes to lead the Marketplace Lenders Association.

Uber is increasing the financial services that it offers its drivers through a partnership with robo-advice company Betterment.

Two of China biggest mobile payments players AliPay and WeChat, have won approval to operate digital wallets in Hong Kong. It seen as a major step towards international expansion.

Momfo, a Shanghai-based property financing platform has raised ?95m ($14m) in a Series A round of funding led by Gobi Partners and Kaitai Capital.

Peer-to-peer lending firm Lending Club is bringing new senior staff on board in an attempt to once again win favour with investment banks.

Australian bank Westpac is making use of its investment in DataRepublic, with the launch of a new service allowing corporate clients to store and exchange anonymised customer data.

Ginmon, a Frankfurt-based robo-advisor, has raised a new round of funding led by London VC Passion Capital. The size of the round is undisclosed.

Singapore-based payments solutions Mobile Credit Payment (MC Payment) has raised S$6m ($4.4m) in Series B financing.

SelfScore, a financial services startups for international students, has raised $7.1m in a new round of funding led by Pelion Venture Partners.

Robo-advisor Ignition wealth has raised Aus$1m ($762,000) in its first round of venture funding from financial planning expert Barry Lambert.