China gets its first online private bank, courtesy of Tencent

Chinese internet and social giant Tencent has launched the country’s first private online bank. The bank, which is called WeBank in a clear allusion to its massively popular instant messaging service WeChat, is also China’s first internet-based financial institution. The launch of WeBank sees Tencent steal a march on Alibaba and eight other private investors who were last year given permission to launch five private online banks. As Technode pointed out at the time, the pilot programme is designed to help make funding more accessible to startups and small businesses.…

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