In 2012 Chinese owned 330 million credit cards, an annual increase of 16%, according to a report released by China Banking Association. The total transaction through credit card reached 10 trillion yuan, up 31.6% annually. 48.26% of payments on retail were through credit card. It’s not true anymore that Chinese don’t make payments with credit cards. Now it’s common to see a Chinese owns more than one credit card.
Sequoia China has been big on Internet finance that has invested in a handful of Chinese startups that includes online financial product search Rong360, mobile game payments service mo9, P2P lending service PPDAI, among others. Now it sees potential in the combination of the growth of credit card usage and mobile app.
Credit card management app Cardniu, or Kaniu has raised a combined 10 million dollars in two rounds, in December 2012 and earlier this year, respectively, from Sequoia China. Feidee, developer of Kaniu, was initially financed by Kingdee, a Hong Kong-listed enterprise financial software developer and the former employer of core members of Feidee founding team. Before Kaniu, the company developed a personal finance app Suishouji which claims it has 60 million users.
Kaniu allows users to bundle credit cards, recording purchases and payments automatically, sorting SMS and email statements, sending transaction statement daily (Chinese banks only do so monthly), among others. It also supports import purchase and payment records to its sister app Suishouji.
Launched no more than one year ago, Kaniu claims it has 20 million registered users with 600 thousand being active daily. Feidee said they were developing a third financial app based on big data.
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