Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial has announced the acquisition of US payments company MoneyGram; Ant Financial plans to leverage and integrate MoneyGram's payments network to provide enhanced servicing for its digital clients; the acquisition represents a significant expansion of services both globally and into the US for Ant Financial; MoneyGram offers global money transfer services from over 350,000 global locations with over 40,000 payment processing locations in the Unites States; with MoneyGram Ant Financial will now have a broader payments network which currently includes its affiliate Alipay, a partnership with Paytm in India and a partnership with Ascend Money in Thailand; the acquisition also helps to support Ant Financial's mission to bring inclusive financial services to users globally. Source
Alibaba spin-off Ant Financial and non profit online lender QCash won the second annual FT fintech awards; they were selected from a group of over 200 companies in the fintech space and the winners were announced at the FT Banking Summit; both companies were rewarded for innovation and providing increased access to financial services. Source.
AliPay launched a free service this week which allowed users to generate a profile based on their shopping history; users who signed up were automatically enrolled in their credit-scoring system called Sesame Credit unless they unchecked a box; this led to an outcry from users and a subsequent apology from the company; Bloomberg shares how this highlights a broader concern over transparency of user data in the country. Source
Ant Financial has formed a strategic partnership with Kakao Pay which includes a $200 million investment and partnership to offer enhanced digital financial services in South Korea; services will include enhanced bill payment, remittance and payment transactions; according to Young-Joon Ryu, Kakao Pay's CEO-elect, "The combination of Ant Financial's global payment platform Alipay and numerous financial and commerce service networks and Kakao's platform capabilities will result in more effective and convenient financial solutions for both businesses and consumers." Source
As the government cracks down on riskier lenders the more established brands of Ant Financial and Lufax look to become even more dominant; China’s top ten online lenders account for 36 percent of all loans and that number looks to continue to rise as smaller lenders look to be on their way out; the top lenders use spending analysis, AI and more to determine creditworthiness of borrowers; with the rise in wealth and spending power in China the dominant fintech firms are ideally positioned. Source.
From the beginning of 2017 Ant’s consumer lending business has doubled; this is a result of growth in their Huabei and Jiebei business units; Chinese regulators have recently made it harder for companies like Ant to create ABS; according to data from Bloomberg, Ant Financial’s ABS Sales account for a third of issuance by all Chinese corporate issuers. Source