SoftBank will take a 5% stake in the online insurer, investing up to $550m, in an initial public offering in Hong Kong that could top $1.5bn.

Jeff Allen went to payment services provider Mastercard, where he was vice-president for strategic investments, in 2009 from investment bank Sagent Advisors.

Online insurance provider ZhongAn is set to raise up to $1.5bn next week and SoftBank's Vision Fund is considering buying $500m of shares.

VMWare-backed cloud billing platform Aria Systems has secured $18m of capital in a Madison Bay Capital-led round, bringing its total funding to $150m.

The investment banking firm has provided $133m in debt and equity financing for Neyber, which offers loans that are paid back directly through borrowers' salaries.

Mark Radcliffe and John McKinlay, partners at DLA Piper, discuss the potential of blockchain and distributed ledger technology.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group has formed an innovation hub in Tokyo as well as a partnership with Work-Bench and Stanford StartX.

Infoteria and Jafco have combined to invest $14.6m in cryptocurrency technology developer Tech Bureau, reportedly bringing its overall funding to $24m.