Singapore licenses first Chinese fintech firm, heating up competition with Hong Kong

China’s second-largest peer-to-peer lending platform, founded by the Ping An Group, has been granted a licence to operate in Singapore, giving the city a leg up in its competition against Hong Kong in attracting investments to nurture financial technology and innovation.

Lujiazui International Financial Asset Exchange, or Lufax, the P2P lender that Ping An established in 2011, was given the green light to launch an international wealth management platform by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which will launch next month.

Gregory Gibb, co-chairman and chief executive of Lufax Holdings which owns the platform in Singapore,said regulation was a key reason the group had opted for Singapore instead of Hong Kong for the development.

“Singapore has developed fintech regulation for a long time so that it has a clear and established regulatory regime on what it wants from the fintech company on platform and product development,” Gibb told the Post before the launch ceremony on Monday in Singapore.

Lufax is in the business of matching borrowers with lenders, collecting a 4 per cent fee on every loan. Since it began in 2011, Lufax said it has arranged more than 200,000 loans valued at a total of US$2.5 billion.

Gibb said initially the new platform will offer simple fund products aimed at Chinese customers with assets overseas before eventually gearing its products towards international clients. The licence is an offshore one, which means it could not sell to domestic Singapore customers.