China Continues To Dominate Global FINTECH Industry

[JSCh]

China set to publish official blockchain standards in 2019
Nicholas Moore
2018-05-11 11:39 GMT+8

China was the world’s biggest source of blockchain patents in 2017, while last September saw a blockchain research center opened by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a research institution under the MIIT.

The new standards being drawn up by the Blockchain Research Office will include guidelines for the application of blockchain in terms of business, information security and reliability, Li told Xinhua.

Despite the exciting potential surrounding blockchain, the technology remains in a stage of infancy. Without clear regulations in place, security problems have caused nearly 2.9 billion US dollars' worth of losses worldwide between 2011 and 2018, according to Baimaohui Security Research Center, a specialist in online security that has worked with Alibaba and Huawei.

The last two years alone have seen 1.9 billion US dollars lost because of blockchain security issues, according to Baimaohui.

Not only are China’s leading tech firms and banks applying for blockchain patents and researching how the technology can improve services and boost public trust in supply chains, China’s Ministry of Public Security is also studying how to implement the technology in terms of data storage.

Earlier this week, data from China’s Intellectual Property Office showed that a patent application had been filed by the Ministry of Public Security for a blockchain system that would securely and transparently save unalterable data to the cloud. Such a system could be used and shared by police across the country, allowing data to be shared rapidly between various agencies.

 

[TaiShang]

Profits up for listed banks, Fintech integration continues
By Guo Xiaohong
China.org.cn, May 17, 2018

EY releases a report, Listed Banks in China: 2017 Review and Outlook, in Beijing on May 15, analyzing the annual reports last year of 41 listed banks in China. [Photo courtesy of EY]

In 2017, the 41 listed banks in China realized net profit totaling 1.54 trillion yuan (US$242.15 billion), a year-on-year increase of 5.1 percent, according to an annual report released on May 15 by EY, a global assurance, tax, transaction and advisory consultancy.

The report "Listed Banks in China: 2017 Review and Outlook" analyzed the annual reports from last year of 41 A-share and H-share listed lenders－five large commercial banks, nine joint-stock commercial banks, 26 city commercial banks and rural commercial banks as well as the Postal Savings Bank of China. It also provided an outlook on their future development.

Steven Xu, financial services partner at EY, attributed the profit growth to a combination of faster growth in operating income driven by net interest income, a slight increase in the cost-to-income ratio and slower growth in impairment allowance.

He pointed out that operating efficiency still has room for improvement with the slowing growth of net fee and commission income, the divergent movement of net interest margin (NIM) and the sliding return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE).

Xu also pointed out that the rise of personal wealth has shifted the consumption pattern upmarket, boosting the consumer appetite for more personalized financial services and products. According to the report, many listed banks have proposed a"big retail" strategy with retail becoming a buzzword in many listed banks' 2017 annual reports.

Xu said that profits before tax from retail business accounted for 39.02 percent of the total profit before tax of the listed banks, 5.6 percentage points higher than that of 2016.

Last year, listed banks also saw rapid development in FinTech, which provides technical support for smart financial services. They further integrated new technologies of FinTech, including big data, cloud technology, biological identification and artificial intelligence, into transforming their operating models and expanding their financial services so as to improve customer experience and competitiveness.


In 2017 the listed banks continued to promote intelligent outlet transformation and the optimization of human resources. The total number of outlets and employees declined slightly from the beginning of the year.


For listed banks, the report said that preventing and containing financial risks and ensuring high quality development will be the key tasks in 2018 and the coming years while technology-led transformation and development has already become a trend. The integration of finance and technology will not stop at the technological level, but will be far-reaching, encompassing mindsets, ideas, business models and management methods.

 

[JSCh]

Ant Financial Pumps USD28 Million into GIT’s Fintech Business
TANG SHIHUA
DATE: THU, 05/31/2018 - 12:01 / SOURCE:YICAI

Ant Financial Pumps USD28 Million into GIT’s Fintech Business​

(Yicai Global) May 31 -- Alibaba Group Holding affiliate Ant Financial Services Group, the world’s most valuable fintech firm, will inject CNY180 million (USD28 million) into financial services provider Global Infotech to set up a joint venture.

Ant Financial will set up the new firm through its Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital Management unit, Beijing-based GIT said, adding that the JV will offer full-industrial-chain services to financial clients. The parties did not add further details on the nature of the JV’s business.

The fintech giant, which runs leading Chinese third-party AliPay will contribute CNY60 million in cash as well as some intangible assets, covering 35 percent of the JV’s registered capital. Yunxin will put CNY180 million into the business, accounting for 45 percent, while the investee’s business team will add CNY80 million, making up 20 percent.

The parties have signed terms for the joint-venture, but the further details will not be finalized until the investment agreement signing.

GIT is a financial IT service company headquartered in Beijing, offering financial clients financial software products, cloud computing and data center solutions, business consulting, and IT management services.

 

[JSCh]

Alibaba financial affiliate raises US$14b to boost international presence
Ding Yining
13:43 UTC+8, 2018-06-08

Ant Financial's new office building in downtown Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
​

Ant Small and Micro Financial Services Group Co has raised US$14 billion in equity financing to fuel international expansion, including an RMB tranche raised by Ant Financial from domestic investors and a USD tranche raised by its wholly owned offshore subsidiary Ant International Co.

The funding will be used to accelerate Alipay’s globalization plans and invest in developing technology to further enhance the company's ability to deliver inclusive financial services to unbanked and underbanked consumers and small enterprises globally, it said in an email statement on Friday.

Eric Jing, Executive Chairman and CEO of Ant Financial, said that they are dedicated to building an open ecosystem with their partners in China and beyond, and that they will "continue to invest in technology and innovation in order to serve the unmet financial needs of people everywhere."

Two previous rounds of financing for Ant Financial were completed in July 2015 and April 2016.

Participants in the RMB tranche of the Series C equity financing are mainly existing shareholders of the company. Institutional investors who took a share in the financing of Ant International include Silverlake, GIC, Carlyle, Temasek and Primavera.

Ant Financial has been seeking overseas expansion through holding minority equity stake in overseas financial technology or payment firms to export its technological know-how and risk management capabilities.

It aims to team up with local partners to better innovate and serve individuals. Its overseas footprint now includes India, Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Its flagship payment service Alipay, together with its global partners, serves approximately 870 million annual active users globally and over 15 million small businesses in China as of March this year.

In recent years, it has also been stepping up efforts to work with companies in financial, insurance, health care and public transportation areas to help them manage payments, data processing and risk management instead of setting up its own financial services.

Source: SHINE Editor: Wang Qingchu

 

[TaiShang]

Chinese fintech sector eyes Asian markets for expansion

By Xie Jun Source:Global Times Published: 2018/6/20 21:28:40

Underdeveloped markets offer opportunities but also pose risks

People visit the Ant Financial stand at an digital economy exhibition in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province on April 25. Photo: VCG

Domestic fintech companies are increasing their efforts in overseas investment, particularly in Southeast and South Asia, to gain the initiative in these opportunity-rich local markets.

Fintech's overseas expansion is an inevitable trend, but some companies in the sector are investing overseas in a speculative way and these deals won't succeed, according to Chinese analysts.

Among the Chinese fintech companies looking abroad, the big players started early. For example, Ant Financial, a unit of Alibaba, established a strategic partnership with India's mobile payment and e-commerce platform Paytm in February 2015.

Ant has formed strategic partnerships with nine overseas companies, most recently with bKash, a Bangladesh-based mobile payment platform, in April, according to a statement Ant Financial sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

An Ant Financial spokesperson said that these strategic partnerships support the company's global partners, leveraging Alipay's experience and technology built up in the Chinese market.

Other fintech players are also seeking market opportunities in neighboring countries. Beijing-based fintech company rong360.com, for example, in February invested in CashCash, an Indonesia-based financial search platform, rong360.com's CEO Ye Daqing told the Global Times on Friday. The company has also invested in a fintech company in South America.

"Now we are looking for investment opportunities in Southeast Asia and South America. We are also looking for (investment) openings in India," he said.

According to Ye, market similarities between China and many Asian countries make it easier for China's fintech innovations to be "copied" in those markets.

"Many Southeast Asian countries' fintech markets are like China's market seven or eight years ago. They also have such problems such as information asymmetry and a lack of mechanisms to fight fraud, which have existed (but improved) in China. China's experience in those areas can meet market demand in those countries," Ye said.

Ye said that rong360.com will only focus on overseas investment but won't set up subsidiaries in overseas markets. "We want to delve deeply into the domestic market for another five or even 10 years before we focus on other markets," Ye said.

Xi Junyang, a finance professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said he was not optimistic about the possibilities of short-term success of China's overseas fintech investments.

"The popularity of a certain financial product, like a third-party mobile payment tool, often lies with having a large user base. Thus, fintech companies need first to accumulate a large customer base in overseas markets or collaborate with a local platform with large customer flows, before they can achieve success with their services. That won't be easy for them," he told the Global Times on Tuesday.

For companies that have reached a certain size, short-term returns aren't the first priority, Xue Hongyan, director of the internet financial center under the Suning Financial Research Center, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

But Xue also noted that many domestic cash loan companies have turned to overseas markets in recent months after facing regulatory hurdles in China.

"I think the intention of their investment is questionable, and they're bound to get into trouble," he said.

Chinese fintech sector eyes Asian markets for expansion

By Xie Jun Source:Global Times Published: 2018/6/20 21:28:40

Underdeveloped markets offer opportunities but also pose risks

People visit the Ant Financial stand at an digital economy exhibition in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province on April 25. Photo: VCG

Domestic fintech companies are increasing their efforts in overseas investment, particularly in Southeast and South Asia, to gain the initiative in these opportunity-rich local markets.

Fintech's overseas expansion is an inevitable trend, but some companies in the sector are investing overseas in a speculative way and these deals won't succeed, according to Chinese analysts.

Among the Chinese fintech companies looking abroad, the big players started early. For example, Ant Financial, a unit of Alibaba, established a strategic partnership with India's mobile payment and e-commerce platform Paytm in February 2015.

Ant has formed strategic partnerships with nine overseas companies, most recently with bKash, a Bangladesh-based mobile payment platform, in April, according to a statement Ant Financial sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

An Ant Financial spokesperson said that these strategic partnerships support the company's global partners, leveraging Alipay's experience and technology built up in the Chinese market.

Other fintech players are also seeking market opportunities in neighboring countries. Beijing-based fintech company rong360.com, for example, in February invested in CashCash, an Indonesia-based financial search platform, rong360.com's CEO Ye Daqing told the Global Times on Friday. The company has also invested in a fintech company in South America.

"Now we are looking for investment opportunities in Southeast Asia and South America. We are also looking for (investment) openings in India," he said.

According to Ye, market similarities between China and many Asian countries make it easier for China's fintech innovations to be "copied" in those markets.

"Many Southeast Asian countries' fintech markets are like China's market seven or eight years ago. They also have such problems such as information asymmetry and a lack of mechanisms to fight fraud, which have existed (but improved) in China. China's experience in those areas can meet market demand in those countries," Ye said.

Ye said that rong360.com will only focus on overseas investment but won't set up subsidiaries in overseas markets. "We want to delve deeply into the domestic market for another five or even 10 years before we focus on other markets," Ye said.

Xi Junyang, a finance professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said he was not optimistic about the possibilities of short-term success of China's overseas fintech investments.

"The popularity of a certain financial product, like a third-party mobile payment tool, often lies with having a large user base. Thus, fintech companies need first to accumulate a large customer base in overseas markets or collaborate with a local platform with large customer flows, before they can achieve success with their services. That won't be easy for them," he told the Global Times on Tuesday.

For companies that have reached a certain size, short-term returns aren't the first priority, Xue Hongyan, director of the internet financial center under the Suning Financial Research Center, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

But Xue also noted that many domestic cash loan companies have turned to overseas markets in recent months after facing regulatory hurdles in China.

"I think the intention of their investment is questionable, and they're bound to get into trouble," he said.

 

[JSCh]

MYBank looking to upgrade, expand services
Xinhua Financein en.silkroad.news.cn
2018-06-22 10:54

MYBank, the online lending affiliate of Ant Financial Services Group, said on Thursday it aims to extend financial services to 30 million small and micro companies and individual businesses in the country over the next three years by teaming up with 1,000 financial institutions.

The bank has pledged to fulfill this promise by opening up technological capabilities to its partners, such as the use of artificial intelligence in credit evaluation and risk control, said Eric Jing, Ant Financial CEO.

AI can monitor the entire business cycle and predict incoming financing needs from these smaller clients, such as surging demands for stockpiled capital ahead of the Nov 11 discount gala, Jing said.

Over 10 million small merchants have obtained loans from MYBank since its debut three years ago. Loan-seekers on average spend three minutes submitting their applications online and the money would reach their accounts within the blink of an eye, said Huang Hao, the bank's president.

It extends loans based on customer risk assessment determined through big data analysis. By circumventing human interference, the cost of issuing one loan is thus slashed from 2,000 yuan ($308) to just 2.3 yuan, most of which can be attributed to investment in calculation and storage hardware, Huang said.

Fulfillment of the goal— to accelerate the penetration of credit services — is fueled by the proliferation of mobile internet and an increasing adoption of Quick Response Code, a popular payment method in China with the aid of a smartphone, he noted.

"Over three million of our existing clients are pop-and-mom stores or individual business owners who accept bills via QR code payment," Huang said.

Due to a lack of credit history or collateral, micro and small businesses have suffered from a credit crunch due to higher costs, bigger risks and the discrepancy between supply and demand, said Li Dongrong, president of the National Internet Finance Association of China.

"Now technology can empower them with funds in nearly real time, greatly reduce bad loan ratios and provide a one-stop financing service for the entire business cycle," he said.

 

[JSCh]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1011141975158878208

Ant Financial ‏Verified account @AntFinancial 1h1 hour ago
#AlipayHK and #GCash launch world's first cross-wallet #remittance service powered by #blockchain using tech developed by @AntFinancial and @Alipay -- we're now providing 24/7, real-time #moneytransfer between #HongKong and the #Philippines at much lower costs. #GCashXAlipayHK

https://twitter.com/x/status/1011150874276556800

 

[JSCh]

China's third-party payment firms face stricter rules
Source:Global Times Published: 2018/7/1 21:53:41

Domestic third-party payment firms face stricter rules

All Chinese online payment transactions handled by non-bank payment institutions had to go through the Online Settlement Platform for Non-Bank Payment Institutions, as of Saturday, a move intended to better regulate the domestic online payment market, experts said on Sunday.

The platform is an online clearinghouse established by the central bank in 2017.

Third-party payment providers including Alibaba's Alipay and Tencent's TenPay, which operates the payment service for WeChat, are all involved.

"As the first of its kind in the world, the platform is a pioneering step by Chinese regulators to supervise the country's fast-growing online payment market, the largest in the world," Li Chao, an analyst at Beijing consultancy iResearch, told the Global Times.

Li said that through the platform, the People's Bank of China (PBC), the central bank, is now able to track and monitor all capital flows of these third-party payment providers, thus preventing money-laundering, bribery, tax evasion and other irregularities in the industry.

Li added that due to these providers' direct payment connections with banks, regulators could not previously get access to such information.

The move is in line with China's goal of strengthening regulations and supervision of third-party payment companies, a process that has been ongoing since the beginning of the year.

According to a report from the Economic Daily, the PBC has fined more than 25 payment agencies as of June 5 this year due to irregularities, and the bank is also accelerating the pace of management of customer deposits of these third-party payment agencies.

On Friday, the PBC announced to gradually increase the proportion of customer deposits submitted by third-party payment firms at a monthly basis, and would reach a total hand over by January 14 in 2019 from the current average 50 percentage, "which will further prevent some platforms from using the deposits on speculation activities," Li said.

Li said that small and medium third-party payment providers would benefit from the unified platform, which would make it easier to get access to banks that they could not reach before.

"It seems that all third-party payment firms, no matter small or big, are on a level playing field now," Li said, adding that regulations will continue to get stricter.

 

[cirr]

Shenzhen issues first blockchain invoice

2018-08-11 12:20:14

Xinhua Editor : Zhang Shiyu

The tax bureau in Shenzhen and Tencent announced Friday that China's first blockchain-based invoice had been issued to a local restaurant.

According to the tax bureau, companies can submit applications for invoices and declare tax on the blockchain platform supported by Tencent, which will automatically generate invoices after transactions are completed.

Cai Yige, manager of Tencent's blockchain business, said the distributed ledger, a core technology of blockchain, enabled secure sharing and storage of transaction records among all parties in the invoicing process, making it impossible to tamper with invoice information.

The bureau and Tencent launched an innovation lab in May, to explore solutions to optimize tax services and prevent risks using cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain and big data.


http://www.ecns.cn/news/sci-tech/2018-08-11/detail-ifywwxaw2292610.shtml

 

[JSCh]

China launches blockchain pilot zone
Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-08 23:10:26|Editor: Lu Hui


HAIKOU, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's first blockchain pilot zone was launched in south China's Hainan Province Monday.

Based in Hainan Resort Software Community (RSC), the zone includes a blockchain research institute, which officially opened Monday and was jointly established by RSC and University College Oxford Blockchain Research Centre at Oxford University.

A blockchain institutional innovation center will also be launched by RSC in collaboration with Renmin University.

"The pilot zone will commit to attracting blockchain talent around the world and exploring the application of blockchain in areas such as cross-border trade, inclusive finance and credit rating," said Wang Jing, head of Hainan's provincial department of industry and information technology.

She said the pilot zone would deepen cooperation with top research institutions across the globe and key players in the blockchain industry.

The blockchain is a digital ledger system that uses sophisticated cryptographic techniques to create a permanent, unchangeable and transparent record of exchanges to trace transactions.

The technology now has a wide range of applications in China, including in finance, credit reporting, smart manufacturing and supply-chain management, according to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

 

[JSCh]

Fintech to facilitate inclusive financial system establishment in China
Xinhua Finance in CFBOND
2018-10-23 10:57

Financial Technology (Fintech) could help build an inclusive financial system which allows any group in society to enjoy more convenient financial services by lowering the threshold and costs of obtaining financing, said Wang Zhongmin, a former vice chairman of the National Council for the Social Society Fund, recently at the Hangzhou Bay Forum.

Fintech has advantages in facilitating operational efficiency, advancing customer experience and boosting products and services updating, and innovations, which are in line with the ultimate goal of traditional financial institutions, said Ao Yifan, a vice president of the Bank of Hangzhou.

Traditional banks usually focus their services on the top 20 percent of customers including large and medium-sized enterprises as well as high-net-worth individuals. While inclusive financing propped up by Fintech could offer services for those whose credit status is hard to measure, like low-income individuals and small enterprises, said Liu Yang, dean of the Blockchain and Industrial Finance Research Institute at the China Electronic Commerce Association. “Leveraged by tremendous customer data, Chinese Fintech companies have an edge over their Western counterparts in innovation applications.”

Urs Bolt, the juror for the Professional Wealth Management (PWM) Wealth Tech Awards at the Financial Times, told the China Fortune Media Group that China has a large market scale while Switzerland has technologies; the two countries could work together on Fintech innovations. China could improve its regulatory technologies, and blockchain technologies could monitor on potential financial risks in real time.

He said that there could be little chance that Fintech companies would take over traditional banks as they are holding customers’ accounts and bearing the financial and credit risks during the transactions.

“It is notable that banks are not leading technology innovations in China. However, Fintech companies are influencing banks to become more tech-oriented.” Urs said banks are supposed to cooperate with tech companies. They need tech applications to exchange data in real time.

He said China’s traditional financial systems need further improvement in real-time personal data monitoring and expertise in KYC (Know your client). He added that China could decentralize its financial regulations by allowing private companies to use regulatory and supervision technologies to test the ground in integrating banks’ customer data.

 

[JSCh]

Fintech reimagines new service models
By Zhu Lingqing | China Daily | Updated: 2018-11-07 11:25

Online payment apps like Alipay are popular in almost every Chinese city, offering convenience to both businesses and consumers. [Photo by Bao Xinguo/for China Daily]

Editor's note: Prior to the Fintech and Construction of a Social Credit System forum to be held on Nov 8, which is a part of the ongoing fifth World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, the industry's insiders told China Daily reporter Zhu Lingqing how the online financial sector is growing and maturing given the strong support from the government's policies and better regulation of the capital market.

China's online financial industry has entered a new stage, in which the regulatory landscape is clearer after several rounds of policy adjustments.

Against the background of stricter supervision and financial deleveraging, more and more financial technology enterprises - so-called fintech companies - are emerging.

The fintech industry will be a highlight of the ongoing World Internet Conference, as a Fintech and Construction of a Social Credit System forum will be held on Thursday. Representatives from the country's major fintech companies such as Ant Financial Services Group and JD Finance will take part in the forum.

The total revenue of Chinese fintech enterprises reached 654.14 billion yuan ($94 billion) last year, after expanding at an average annual growth rate of more than 50 percent since 2013, and the total is expected to exceed 1.97 trillion yuan by 2020, according to a report released by Shenzhen-based CI Consulting.

Mobile payments via Chinese apps are available at a store in Sydney, Australia. [Photo by Xu Kangping/for China Daily]

In addition, domestic fintech companies are continuing to dominate the top 50 list in the 2018 Fintech 100 report released by KPMG and fintech investment firm H2 Ventures on Oct 23. Ant Financial Services Group and JD Finance took the top two spots, while Du Xiaoman Financial and Lufax came in at No 4 and No 10 respectively.

"As the world's largest consumer market and one of the fastest-growing regions in the world, China is at the forefront of global fintech development," said Ma Ji, vice-president of JD Finance, at the 2018 Sibos conference held in October in Sydney.

Ma said that emerging technologies, strong support from the Chinese government's policies and the general optimism of the capital markets are the three main reasons for the rapid development of China's fintech industry so far.

Reshaping services

At present, domestic fintech companies have been using emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and blockchain, to offer technical support for financial service fields such as customer services, risk management, marketing, investment management and credit assessment.

AI has become a leading trend in the world of finance, making financial services smarter by mining data from massive stores of information, said Fan Zhiming, head of Ant Financial's wealth management unit.

CloudWalk Technology, a high-tech company based in Chongqing, displays its facial recognition system at a recent Beijing trade show.[Photo by Bao Xinguo/for China Daily]

As a core engine of Alibaba's financial affiliate Ant Financial, the world's largest third-party payments platform, AI has been used widely in the company's businesses, including intelligent customer service, transaction risk control, marketing, virtual damage assessment for car insurance, loan approval and anti-fraud processes.

The company's data showed that Alipay's smart customer service, which can handle 2 million to 3 million user queries per day, only needs one second to complete five rounds of queries, which is 30 to 60 times more efficient than any human service.

At present, more than 120 customers in the insurance, securities, government and e-commerce industries are using Ant Financial's AI technology, according to the company.

Ant Financial opened up its AI capabilities to 10 financial institutions on June 14, 2017, setting up virtual shops at its independent wealth management platform Ant Fortune. The company said average daily trading volume of its cooperative fund companies increased 243 percent in just one month after they set up their Fortune Accounts on the platform.

For JD Finance, the finance arm of China's second-largest e-commerce giant, its core advantage lies in the massive, multidimensional and dynamic technology of big data.

Relying on e-commerce, finance and various third-party data generated by hundreds of millions of JD users and its millions of partners, the company has explored a series of technologies and applications in fields including risk management, by using technologies such as blockchain and AI.

A young visitor learns about the latest in anti-counterfeiting money technology at a financial show in Beijing last year. [Photo by Da Wei/for China Daily]

Inclusive finance

While regulators have been encouraging banks to support small and micro enterprises this year, the fintech sector has already paved the way for inclusive finance and SME-focused financial services.

Ant Financial was named in MIT Technology Review's 2017 50 Smartest Companies list for applying AI technologies to its lending business and exploring blockchain technologies to build a more transparent platform.

The company's small loans effectively support the fragmented credit demands of China's massive population of SMEs and individual entrepreneurs who find it difficult to obtain loans under the traditional banking system, to help them to grow and innovate.

Based on big data and internet technologies, Alipay has been able to offer its 310 loan services to rural consumers and small business owners without collateral guarantees. That means it takes three minutes to make online application, one second for lending assessment, and zero manual intervention in the whole process.

 

[TaiShang]

Face-Scan Payments Will Explode in the Next Three Years, AliPay Says

By Isabelle Li / Dec 14, 2018 07:40 PM / Business & Tech

AliPay, the biggest mobile payment app in China, released its latest face-scan payment product named Dragonfly on Thursday.

Facial recognition payment technology has been around in supermarkets, hospitals in China since last year, but Dragonfly will further lower the installation cost for merchants by 80%, Alibaba-backed AliPay says.

Cashless payments through mobile apps can be made almost anywhere in China, from street food stalls to government halls, with AliPay and Wechat Pay being the two dominant players.

Statistics from Alibaba during this year’s “Double 11” shopping festival also suggest that payments through face and fingerprint scans now make up 60% of all transactions. The company says that as facial recognition technology takes the place of QR codes, “paying by smiling” will most likely experience explosive growth over the next three years.

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-1...e-next-three-years-alipay-says-101359432.html

 

[JSCh]

Ant Financial backs Pakistani payment tool
By He Wei in Guangzhou | China Daily | Updated: 2019-01-10 10:41

Ant Financial Services Group, which operates mobile payment tool Alipay. ​

Ant Financial Services Group, which operates mobile payment tool Alipay, is powering Pakistan's first cross-border remittance service using blockchain technologies, marking a major milestone in the country's journey to promote financial inclusion.

Pakistan's Telenor Microfinance Bank announced on Tuesday the introduction of the service through its Easypaisa mobile wallet.

The virtual wallet enables Pakistanis living in Malaysia to send money home instantly and securely via Telenor's Malaysia-based remittance service provider Valyou.

"This places Pakistan among the very few countries in the world that have launched international remittance using blockchain technology," said Tariq Bajwa, governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, who attended the launch event in Islamabad.

The blockchain technology will not only improve the speed and efficiency of remittances, but ensure money transfers are highly secure and transparent, as all information stored, shared, or uploaded through the blockchain remittance platform will be encrypted, according to a joint statement from Ant Financial and Telenor.

"The new remittance service is one of the examples of how emerging technologies can help countries meet their digital and financial inclusion goals," said Eric Jing, chairman and CEO of Ant Financial.

According to Ant Financial, Alipay's transaction fees will be waived during the one-year trial period.

Inbound remittances contributed over 6 percent to Pakistan's GDP during the fiscal year 2017 to 2018, equivalent to over 50 percent of the trade deficit, 85 percent of exports and more than one-third of imports, Bajwa said citing official figures.

Currently, Pakistan receives about $1 billion in home remittances from Malaysia, and this Easypaisa-Valyou collaboration is going to change it for the better due to its transparency and swiftness, said Roar Bjaerum, senior vice-president of Telenor Financial Services.

The Pakistani government has recently unveiled a National Financial Inclusion Strategy based on a five-year plan. It aims to create 3 million jobs and additional exports of $5.5 billion by improving small and medium-sized enterprises' access to financing.

Starting from 2015, Alipay has formed nine strategic partnerships with local partners outside the Chinese mainland. This trend of fostering ecosystem development with local partners across Asia is likely to continue, according to a report by data and analysis company CB Insights.

During last year's Alibaba Cloud conference, Ant Financial announced its blockchain partnership plan that pledged to open its blockchain-as-a-service platform in an attempt to create more value for financial systems and lower trade costs.

The first batch of partners includes PwC, Tsinghua Smart Cloud, Accenture and Standard Chartered Bank.

 

[JSCh]

China's Ant Financial acquires int'l payment firm WorldFirst
Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-14 20:54:32|Editor: ZX

LONDON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Ant Financial, an Alibaba affiliate, announced on Thursday it has taken over UK-based international payments group WorldFirst, marking the most significant foreign fintech acquisition by the Chinese financial services company.

Ant Financial, operator of the world's leading payment platform Alipay, said in a statement that Alipay will work with WorldFirst to better serve global small businesses, promote inclusive finance and contribute to sustainable development in the world.

WorldFirst, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ant Financial, will continue to be headed by co-founder and CEO Jonathan Quin. The UK-headquartered company will continue its regulated business with global operations, including in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.

Quin wrote in a letter to its customers that the products and services of Alipay and WorldFirst are highly complementary and that WorldFirst will be able to offer even better products and services by becoming part of a larger group.

"By combining WorldFirst's award-winning currency account, international payments and currency exchange products with Ant Financial's range of financial technology solutions, we will advance our shared aims of building the best global platform for international trade and bring fast and affordable services to individuals, small and medium-sized businesses and online merchants around the world," Quin wrote.