William Bao Bean, managing director of the Shanghai-based Chinaccelarator, tells about his busy week, trying to help foreign startups to enter China and helping Chinese companies to go global. The main problem of his international operation? “You never have a holiday.”

From a cash country, where transactions were done by moving plastic bags with money between bank branches, China has turned into a leading force in fintech or financiel technology. Mobile payment are standard. Bitcoins and blockchain technology found in China early adopters. Social media have – more than anywhere in the world – adopted payment systems to facilitate online trade.

Startups are mostly at the mercy of quasi-monopolies like Facebook, Google, Tencent or Alibaba. William Bao Bean, managing director of Shanghai-based SOSV tells in this elevator talk how his no.1 accelerator helps them to avoid spending money on those giants to get access to an audience, creating a win-win situation.

China is leading the market of self-driving cars, because its size and the aggressive way the government is paving the road, literally, says Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub to the China Law Insight. But investing in China offers not only huge opportunities, the challenges are equally gargantuan. 

Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub dives further into the legal consequences of self-driving cars. Big data – generated by cars – are not the same as oil, as some argue, he says. Privacy is a key issue, that did not matter to oil, he writes at the China Law Insight.

Tencent’s WeChat has been a winner in China in terms of users but might even beat its Western competitors in terms of functionality, writes WeChat analyst Matthew Brennan at the China Channel. The bigger question is will the tech giants outside China ever be able to catch up?

Tencent’s WeChat announced a record number of monthly users over Springfestival passing one million. But WeChat expert Matthew Brennan expects that growth in numbers reached its top, and WeChat will be adding more functionality to expand its business, he tells CNNMoney.

Most internet startups are at the mercy of Facebook, Google, and in China Tencent or Alibaba. William Bao Bean, managing director of Shanghai-based SOsV, co-founded the Mobile Only Accelerator MOX, an independent platform offering not only capital but also an audience to launch, he explains in the News Lens.

A strong shift from real estate tycoons to IT-giants marks a shift at China’s economy in the ongoing political meetings in Beijing, says author Shaun Rein of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order to the South China Morning Post. “China is picking five to 10 private technology companies to make them national champions.”

After Beijing Shanghai has become the second city in the race to regulate self-driving cars. Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub compared both regulations and draws from the differences some conclusions for Shanghai, he writes on the China Law Insight.