SHANGHAI, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Lufax, the Internet financial arm of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company, is valued at 18.5 billion U.S. dollars with a recent round of funding, becoming one of the world's most valuable financial technology startups, according to a company statement released on Monday.

　　The new financing includes 924 million U.S. dollars from series B investors and 292 million U.S. dollars from its existing investors who had bought stakes in an initial funding round, according to the statement.

　　The B round of financing was several times oversubscribed. Institutions from home and aboard participated, including the Bank of China Group Investment Limited and Guotai Junan (Hong Kong), it said.

　　The initial public offering (IPO) of Lufax could take place as early as the second half of this year, said Lufax Chairman Gregory Gibb.

　　"The IPO is still under assessment. Whether to list on a domestic or an overseas exchange is still in consideration," he said.

　　As of December 2015, Lufax had 3.63 million active registered users with a total trading volume of more than 1.6 trillion yuan (243.9 billion U.S dollars).

　　Lufax, established in 2011 in Shanghai, serves as a trading platform for a wide variety of financial products involving institutional and individual investors, including wealth management products and peer-to-peer loans.