Ant Financial

Ant Financial is a financial technology company that is situated in China. It is a company that focuses on bringing inclusive financial services to the world.

Ant Financial was formerly Alipay, Ant Financial Services is a spin-off of China's Alibaba and akin to PayPal in the United States. The organization has expanded beyond mobile wallet Alipay to include an online lending platform, MyBank, and an investment fund, Yu’e Bao.

In June 2018, Ant Financial introduced cross-border remittance network that is based on blockchain. Through an established partnership between its AlipayHK brand and GCash, Ant Financial offers real-time money transfer between Hong Kong and the Philippines, with lesser fees than the traditional transfer services.

Ant Financial has made use of its Artificial Intelligence expertise to improve wealth management services and made them more accessible and customizable for users. In June 2018, Ant opened up its AI services for any Chinese asset managers to modernize their services.

Ant’s AI-powered accounts on its Ant Fortune platform give fund managers new insights into their customers. In August 2018, Ant debuted 14 new target date retirement funds on Ant Fortune, in an effort to encourage personal savings for retirement in addition to China's pension system.

In 2016, Ant Financial pulled in a $4.5 billion round of funding and acquired a face-scanning verification software, EyeVerify. While competitor Tencent has usurped marketshare via the growth of WeChat Pay, Ant Financial remains a strong force, due to its expansion into new financial products and regions, and partnerships with ride-hailing platform, Didi Chuxing and food-delivery service, Ele.me.

In 2016, Ant Financial invested in a used car dealer, Alibaba’s online ticketing platform, a wealth management company, a food-delivery service, and major fast-food conglomerate Yum China. The company has made inroads in India by leveraging an existing partnership with Uber, so customers can use both AliPay and Paytm, a company it invested in two years ago, in lieu of a credit card to pay for rides.

In Europe, Ant Financial’s agreement with German payment processing terminal Wirecard allows it to be accepted in some retail shops. It also did wide outreach to merchants, by offering them customer data in exchange for accepting Alipay.