Ant Group ()'','' formerly known as Ant Financial, is an affiliate company of the Chinese conglomerate
Alibaba Group. The group owns the world's largest mobile (digital) payment platform
Alipay
Alipay () is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company An ...
, which serves over 1.3 billion users and 80 million merchants, with total payment volume (TPV) reaching in June 2020.
It is the second largest financial services corporation in the world, behind
Visa
Visa most commonly refers to:
*Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company
** Visa Debit card issued by the above company
** Visa Electron, a debit card
** Visa Plus, an interbank network
*Travel visa, a document that allows ...
. In March 2019, ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' reported that Ant's flagship
Tianhong Yu'e Bao money-market fund was the largest in the world, with over 588 million users, or more than a third of China's population, contributing cash to it.
In October 2020, Ant Group was set to raise US$34.5 billion in the world's largest
IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
at the time, valuing the company at US$313 billion. On the eve of the IPO, China stopped the process from moving forward. It was reported that the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
leader
Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets vi ...
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, s ...
personally scuttled the Ant IPO.
On 12 April 2021, ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that under the pressure from the Chinese government, Ant Group would be transformed into a financial holding company overseen by China's state-controlled central bank.
In July 2022, Chinese authorities give a tentative green light to Ant Group to revive its initial public offering plans in both Shanghai and Hong Kong.
History
Founding and expansion (2014–2020)
Alipay was rebranded as Ant Group Services on 23 October 2014, and the company changed its name to Ant Group Co., Ltd on 13 July 2020.
In 2015, Ant Group raised $4.5 billion in a funding round with investors including
China Investment Corp
China Investment Corporation (CIC) ( Chinese: 中国投资有限责任公司; pinyin: ''zhōngguó tóuzī yǒuxiàn zérèn gōngsī'') is a sovereign wealth fund that manages part of the People's Republic of China's foreign exchange reserves. ...
(CIC),
CCB Trust,
China Life
China Life Insurance Company Limited (short China Life, ) is a Beijing-headquartered China-incorporated company that provides life insurance and annuity
In investment, an annuity is a series of payments made at equal intervals.Kellison, Step ...
,
China Post Group
China Post, legally the China Post Group Corporation ( zh, 中国邮政集团有限公司, Pinyin: ''Zhōngguó yóuzhèng jítuán yǒuxiàn gōngsī''), is the state-owned enterprise operating the official postal service of China, which pro ...
, China Development Bank Capital and Primavera Capital Group.
In 2015, the company was valued at about $45 billion.
As of 26 April 2016, Ant Group had around 450 million annual active users, with Credit Suisse estimating that 58% of China's online payment transactions went through Alipay.
[ In September 2016, Ant Group bought EyeVerify Inc. and the company was rebranded as Zoloz.]
By late January 2017, Ant Group had a valuation of $60 billion.[ On 26 January 2017, Ant Group Services Group announced a deal to acquire ]MoneyGram International
MoneyGram International, Inc. is an American cross-border P2P payments and money transfer company based in the United States with headquarters in Dallas, Texas. It has an operations center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and regional and local off ...
for $880 million. In January 2018, the companies decided to terminate the deal after approval was not granted from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS, commonly pronounced "Cifius" ) is an inter-agency committee of the United States government that reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. companie ...
due to U.S. national security
National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...
concerns.[ The same month, the ]Cyberspace Administration of China
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC; ) is the central internet regulator, censor, oversight, and control agency for the People's Republic of China. The office also holds the administrative title of the party's Office of the Central C ...
stated that Ant Group had failed to meet the country's personal data protection standards.
In September 2017, Ant Group formed a joint venture with Sir Li Ka-shing
Sir Ka-shing Li (; born 13 June 1928) is a Hong Kong billionaire business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. As of June 2019, Li is the 31st richest person in the world, with an estimated net wealth of US$33.4 billion. He is the senior ad ...
's CK Hutchison Holdings
CK Hutchison Holdings Limited is a Hong Kong-based and Cayman Islands-registered multinational conglomerate corporation. The company was formed in March 2015 through the merger of Cheung Kong Holdings and its main associate company Hutchison Wh ...
to launch a digital wallet service in Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
. In June 2018, the company launched a blockchain-powered cash remittance service that will allow real-time cash transfers between Hong Kong and the Philippines.
On 9 June 2018, the company raised around US$14 billion, which the ''Times of India'' called "the biggest-ever single fund-raising globally by a private company".
In November 2019, the company announced to be raising $1 billion for a new fund, with the aim to expand the firm's investment activities in India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
. According to media reports, the fund is meant to provide late-stage funding to startups.
In January 2020, Ant Group applied for a digital banking
Digital banking is part of the broader context for the move to online banking, where banking services are delivered over the internet. The shift from traditional to digital banking has been gradual and remains ongoing, and is constituted by diffe ...
license in Singapore.
Attempted initial public offering (2020)
In 2020, Ant Group intended to complete an initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
, aiming to raise $34 billion by listing. This would have been the largest such offering by any company to date, above the $29.4 billion raised by Saudi Aramco
Saudi Aramco ( ar, أرامكو السعودية '), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company) or simply Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. , it is one of ...
as a result of its 2019 offering.[
Due to Ant Group's scale—the company has approximately one billion users in China—and its operations, which include lending services, the company has attracted regulatory scrutiny in the past.] The China Securities Regulatory Commission
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) is a government ministry of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is the main regulator of the securities industry in China.
History
China's first Securities Law was ...
previously imposed new restrictions on money-market funds, a move attributed to the size and growth of Yu'e Bao, an Ant offering. Though the company asserts it does not function as a bank or a financial institution,[ Chinese banks have voiced their belief that Ant draws deposits away from them, so undermining the banking system.][ The People's Bank of China requested data from banks that lent through Ant in mid-2020 and the ]State Administration for Market Regulation
The State Administration for Market Supervision (SAMR) (), is the ministerial-level agency directly under the State Council of the People's Republic of China
The State Council, constitutionally synonymous with the Central People's Governm ...
informally began an investigation earlier in the year into whether Alipay and WeChat Pay
WeChat Pay () is a mobile payment and digital wallet service by WeChat based in China that allows users to make mobile payments and online transactions. As of March 2016, WeChat Pay had over 300 million users. WeChat Pay's main competitor in Chin ...
, a Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...
subsidiary, had abused their size to hamper competitors.
Several days before the IPO was to take place, in October 2020, the company's founder and controlling shareholder, Ma, made negative statements about Chinese regulators and the governing political party, the Chinese Communist Party. Ma criticized regulators for their focus on risk mitigation. Soon after the comments were made, Ma and other senior Ant executives were summoned to a meeting with the China Securities Regulatory Commission
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) is a government ministry of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is the main regulator of the securities industry in China.
History
China's first Securities Law was ...
, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission
The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) is an agency of the People's Republic of China (PRC) authorised by the State Council to
* Supervise the establishment and ongoing business activities of banking and insurance instituti ...
, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange as well as representatives from the country's central bank, the People’s Bank of China
The People's Bank of China (officially PBC or informally PBOC; ) is the central bank of the People's Republic of China, responsible for carrying out monetary policy and regulation of financial institutions in mainland China, as determined by ...
. Ant Group issued a statement disclosing that the Ant and government representatives discussed "Views regarding the health and stability of the financial sector".
After the meeting, and two days before the IPO was set to occur, the offering was suspended by the Shanghai Stock Exchange; the Shanghai Stock Exchange referenced "major issues" as the reasoning behind the suspension. The exchange further indicated that the company no longer conformed with listing requirements. Ant subsequently suspended the Hong Kong listing.[ The '']Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' attributed the suspension to the personal will of Xi, who had become infuriated by Ma's comments, citing "Chinese officials with knowledge of the matter",[ though these assertions have also been characterized as "rumors".] The suspension was unexpected, surprising bankers working on the transaction, the broader financial industry, and consumers prepared to invest in the offering. It has been referred to as "abrupt" and "shocking". Ant began working to address regulator concerns in January 2021, though no public plans for an IPO have been announced as of September 2021.
Jack Ma retreated from the public eye after the IPO's suspension.[ Some speculated that Ma had left China altogether.][ He did not appear in public between October 2020 and January 2021. In January 2021, he spoke in a live-streamed video.] In the video, he discussed his commitment to philanthropy and improving quality of life for those in rural China.[
]
After suspension of IPO (2020–present)
On 4 December 2020, Ant Group's unit and a consortium comprising Greenland Financial Holdings Group, Linklogis Hong Kong Ltd, and Beijing Co-operative Equity Investment Fund Management, have been selected to receive the digital wholesale bank (DWB) licences in Singapore. Ant Group was later ordered by the People’s Bank of China
The People's Bank of China (officially PBC or informally PBOC; ) is the central bank of the People's Republic of China, responsible for carrying out monetary policy and regulation of financial institutions in mainland China, as determined by ...
on 26 December 2020 to "rectify" its business and formulate an implementation timetable. The central bank also summoned Ant executives, saying that the Group lacked an effective governance mechanism, defied regulatory compliance requirements and engaged in regulatory arbitrage
In economics and finance, arbitrage (, ) is the practice of taking advantage of a difference in prices in two or more markets; striking a combination of matching deals to capitalise on the difference, the profit being the difference between th ...
.
On 15 January 2021, Ant Group announced that it will overhaul its business structure in accordance with the Chinese central bank and its financial regulators' wishes. State spokesmen announced that the Ant Group's consumer finance branch will be regulated as a financial institution, in lieu of a technology startup.
In April 2021, Ant Group applied to become a financial holding company under the direction of the Peoples' Bank of China. The move separated Ant Group's consumer lending businesses, credit card-like Huabei and micro-loan provider Jiebei, from Alipay’s other financial offerings with effect from September 2021. This development dismantled the Alipay super app that serves more than 1.2 billion users. Huabei and Jiebei share approximately 500 million users.
In January 2022, Ant Group launched a new investment advisory service named "Golden Choice Investment Consultants (金选投顾)" in partnership with six financial institutions – Aegon-Industrial Fund, Southern Asset Management, Zhong Ou Asset Management, GF Fund Management, Harvest Wealth, and Caitong Securities. The service was briefly available to all Alipay users before it was taken down less than ten days later as Ant Group does not hold a fund rating license that is required before an entity can assess and publicly share information about the investment prospects of financial instruments.
In April 2022, the company took over Singapore-based payments firm 2C2P
Alipay () is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company An ...
to further digital payment adoption.
In July 2022, Chinese authorities give a tentative green light to Ant Group to revive its initial public offering plans in both Shanghai and Hong Kong.
In November 2022, Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
reported that the People's Bank of China
The People's Bank of China (officially PBC or informally PBOC; ) is the central bank of the People's Republic of China, responsible for carrying out monetary policy and regulation of financial institutions in mainland China, as determined by ...
was readying to fine Ant Group around US$1 billion, potentially ending its two-year overhaul.
Expansion outside Asia
Driven by the growing numbers of Chinese tourists around the world, Ant Group has sought to expand its services into Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. In Europe, the company had tripled the number of merchants that are accepting the Alipay app, according to the firm's head of Europe division. Partnerships exist between Alipay and various European digital wallet apps, including ePassi (Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
), Vipps
Vipps is a Norwegian mobile payment application designed for smartphones developed by DNB. Vipps was released May 30, 2015 and, having reached 1 million users by November 5, 2015, Vipps became Norway's largest payment application. Although Vipps ...
(Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
), MOMO (Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
), Pagaqui (Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
) and Bluecode (Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
).
On 14 February 2019, Ant Group acquired the British international money transfer services provider WorldFirst for $700 million.
In March 2019, UK's Barclaycard
Barclaycard (; stylized as barclaycard) is a brand for credit cards of Barclays PLC. , Barclays had over ten million customers in the United Kingdom.
History
Barclays launched Barclaycard on 29 June 1966, initially as a charge card, but followin ...
expanded an agreement that enabled British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
retailers to accept the Alipay app in their stores.
By September 2020, it was reported that U.S. authorities are considering restrictions on Ant Group's payment system, with the U.S. State Department recommending that Ant Group be added to the Entity List
The Entity List is a trade restriction list published by the United States Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), consisting of certain foreign persons, entities, or governments. Entities on the Entity List are subject to U ...
, but subsequently withdrew plans to sanction the company.
Services
It operates Alipay, the world's largest mobile and online payments platform as well as Yu’e Bao, formerly the world's largest money-market fund. It also runs Zhima Credit
Zhima Credit (), also known as Sesame Credit, is a private credit scoring and loyalty program system developed by Ant Group, an affiliate of the Chinese Alibaba Group. It uses data from Alibaba's services to compile its score. Customers receive a ...
, a third-party credit rating
A credit rating is an evaluation of the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, a business, company or a government), predicting their ability to pay back the debt, and an implicit forecast of the likelihood of the debtor defaulting.
...
system. As of September 2017, Ant Group unveiled its facial recognition payment technology through its Alipay services.
In September 2018, the company launched the Ant Group Technology brand for all of its technology products and services.
In 2015, Alibaba and Ant Group Services Group created online-to-offline local services company Koubei as a joint venture . Ant Group also operates credit payment company Huabei, and owns a 30% stake in the online bank called MYbank
EBA Clearing is a provider of pan-European payment infrastructure wholly owned by shareholders that consist of major European banks.
It owns and operates major payment infrastructure in Europe for Euro payments between banks. This includes EURO1 ...
.[
In 2015, Ant Group launched Ant Fortune, a wealth management platform. Yu’e Bao is one of the products on the platform. Ant Fortune offers hundreds of products from more than 80 Chinese fund institutions.
In June 2017, Ant Fortune launched a Fortune Account () service platform that allows financial institutions to publish content and sell their financial products there.
In October 2018, Ant Group launched the Xianghubao mutual protection plan that attracted 50 million people to sign on in half a year. Operating somewhat like a collective, Xiang Hu Bao has no sign-up charges and participants contribute evenly to payouts of as much as 300,000 yuan when a member falls critically ill. Such products may help fill a yawning gap in medical protection for vulnerable populations in China, as the rate of critical illnesses rises.
In September 2019, a product within the Alipay app called Ant Forest received a Champions of the Earth award, the United Nation's highest environmental honor, for turning the green activities of half a billion people into real trees planted in some of China's most arid regions. Users are encouraged to record their low-carbon footprint through daily actions, such as taking public transportation or paying utility bills online. For each move, they receive "green energy" points with which they can exchange for the real trees, which they can view in real time via satellite.
In 2021, Ant Group revealed at the Digital China Summit that it has been cooperating with the ]People's Bank of China
The People's Bank of China (officially PBC or informally PBOC; ) is the central bank of the People's Republic of China, responsible for carrying out monetary policy and regulation of financial institutions in mainland China, as determined by ...
since 2017 to develop and test e-CNY, an official digital currency.
Controversies
Connection with Megvii
Ant Group is among the early-stage investors of Megvii
Megvii () is a Chinese technology company that designs image recognition and deep-learning software. Based in Beijing, the company develops artificial intelligence (AI) technology for businesses and for the public sector. In 2019, the company wa ...
, a Beijing-based company known for providing artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
products to various businesses including Ant itself. In May 2019, Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
reported finding Megvii's Face++ code in the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), a police data system used by Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
authorities for mass surveillance
Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...
, particularly in relation to the Uyghur community. Human Rights Watch released a correction to its report in June 2019 stating that Megvii did not appear to have collaborated on IJOP, and that the Face++ code in the app was inoperable. The Trump administration later added Megvii to the Bureau of Industry and Security
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that deals with issues involving national security and high technology. A principal goal for the bureau is helping stop the proliferation of weapo ...
's Entity List, accusing it of participating in human rights violations in the Chinese government's campaign against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
In September 2020, former Google China
Google China is a subsidiary of Google. A popular search engine, most services offered by Google China were blocked by the Great Firewall in the People's Republic of China. In 2010, searching via all Google search sites, including Google Mobil ...
president and venture capitalist Kai-Fu Lee
Kai-Fu Lee (; born December 3, 1961) is a Taiwanese computer scientist, businessman, and writer. He is currently based in Beijing, China.
Lee developed a speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system as his Ph.D. thesis at Carnegie ...
said in a public speech that Sinovation Ventures
Sinovation Ventures () is a Beijing-based venture capital firm founded in 2009. The firm focuses on investing in startups that use artificial intelligence technology. It was one of the first Chinese venture capital firms to establish a presence i ...
had assisted Megvii in obtaining a large amount of private facial data from Ant Group to “analyze how to enter various industries.” Following Lee's speech, Ant Group denied providing Megvii facial data. Lee later said he “misspoke” on the issue.
Sharing consumer data with Chinese government
In January 2021, ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that China's regulators were trying to make Ant share the troves of personal data in its payment and lifestyle app, Alipay, which is used by over a billion people. The data include consumers' spending habits, borrowing behaviors, and payment histories. According to people familiar with the issue, in the past, Jack Ma had resisted the authorities' attempts to grab the data owned by Ant. In late December 2020, China's central bank criticized Ant for its "defiance of regulatory demands" and asked the company to restructure its business.
Beijing regulators and Alipay heist
On 15 August 2021, investor and business writer Andy Kessler wrote on ''The Wall Street Journal'' that "Back when Alibaba was private, Mr. Ma benefited when Chinese regulators and the Chinese Central bank forced a spinout of their payment system, Alipay, basically taking away value from existing Alibaba shareholders, like Yahoo and SoftBank, and giving it to Chinese investors. That was a money heist."
Whilst there is no direct accusation or evidence that Alibaba office holders lobbied Chinese officials, the Ant IPO prospectus showed complex ownership structure with ''Hangzhou Junhan'' owning 29.86%, ''Hangzhou Junao'' owning 20.66%, and Alibaba itself holding 32.65%. Meanwhile, another entity named ''Hangzhou Yunbo'' controls the top two stakeholders, ''Hangzhou Junhan'' and ''Hangzhou Junao'', as their executive and general partner. Jack Ma was ''Yunbo''s single largest stakeholder with 34%. Three other Ant officials, Chairman Eric Jing, CEO Simon Hu and non-executive director Jiang Fang, held equal stakes in the remainder of ''Yunbo'', with 22% each.
Related entities
Subsidiaries
* Alipay – a mobile wallet app supports make and accept payments.
* Huabei (Ant Credit Pay) – a virtual credit card type of product that facilitates credit payments.
* MYbank – a private cloud-based online bank that is also one of six state-banked financial institutions to operate the digital yuan
Digital renminbi ( zh, 数字人民币; also abbreviated as digital RMB and e-CNY), or Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP, ), is a central bank digital currency issued by China's central bank, the People's Bank of China. It is the first digi ...
in China. Ant Group owns a 30% stake in the subsidiary bank.
* Jiebei (Ant Cash Now) – a consumer loan service.
* Ant Fortune – a comprehensive wealth management app.
* Ant Insurance Services
*Zhima Credit
Zhima Credit (), also known as Sesame Credit, is a private credit scoring and loyalty program system developed by Ant Group, an affiliate of the Chinese Alibaba Group. It uses data from Alibaba's services to compile its score. Customers receive a ...
– an independent credit filling and scoring service for individuals.
* ZOLOZ – a global biometric-based identity verification platform.
* WorldFirst – a global foreign exchange platform for individuals and international businesses.
* Shuzi Mali (Digital Horsepower Information Technology) – a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business that provides technology consultancy and software services.
* Sa Si Digital Technology – a SaaS that focuses on software development, technology transfer, and server integration for financial enterprises.
International partners
* 2C2P
Alipay () is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company An ...
(Singapore)
* Easypaisa
Easypaisa is a Pakistani mobile wallet, mobile payments and branchless banking services provider. It was founded in 2009 by Telenor Pakistan. It also provides digital payment service through QR code in partnership with Masterpass and is the onl ...
(Pakistan)
* Paytm
Paytm (acronym for "pay through mobile") is an Indian digital payments and financial services company, based in Noida. It was founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma under One97 Communications. The company offers mobile payment services to co ...
(India)
* Zomato
Zomato () is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato provides information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options fro ...
(India)
* bKash
bKash ( bn, বিকাশ) is a mobile financial service in Bangladesh operating under the authority of Bangladesh Bank as a subsidiary of BRAC Bank Limited. This mobile money system started as a joint venture between BRAC Bank Limited, Bangl ...
(Bangladesh)
* Ascend Money (Thailand)
* KakaoPay
KakaoPay (Hangul: 카카오페이) is a mobile payment and digital wallet service by Kakao based in South Korea that allows users make mobile payments and online transactions. The service supports contactless payments using near-field communicat ...
(South Korea)
* GCash Inc. (Philippines)
* Emtek
PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk, trading as Emtek, is an Indonesian technology, telecommunication and media conglomerate headquartered in Jakarta. As of 2013, it is Indonesia's second largest media company. It is the parent company for subsidiar ...
(Indonesia)
* Touch 'n Go eWallet
Touch 'n Go eWallet is a Malaysian digital wallet and online payment platform, established in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in July 2017 as a joint venture between Touch 'n Go and Ant Financial. It allows users to make payments at over 280,000 merchant ...
(Malaysia)
* Cheung Kong Hutchinson (Hong Kong)
* Vodacom
Vodacom Group Limited is a South-Western African mobile communications company, providing voice, messaging, data and converged services to over 55 million customers. From its roots in South Africa, Vodacom has grown its operations to include n ...
(South Africa)
References
External links
*
{{authority control
Alibaba Group
Financial services companies established in 2014
Financial services companies of China
Chinese companies established in 2014
Companies based in Hangzhou
Warburg Pincus companies