China’s biggest fintech company is investing heavily in mobile wallet companies situated in the emerging markets of South-east Asia, South Asia and the African continent.
According to a report from FactorDaily Alibaba-affiliate Ant Financial is a lead investor in almost every significant mobile wallet company in the world’s emerging economies.
These companies include Bangladesh’s BCash, Indonesia’s Emtek, India’s Paytm, Malaysia’s TouchnGo, Pakistan’s Easypaisa, Gcash in the Philippines and Thailand’s Ascend.
Ant Financial has also set its sights on Africa, announcing in August at the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa that it had entered an agreement with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the International Financial Corporation to advance digital financial inclusion via investment and the development of technical capacity.
Ant Financial brings major technology transfers and integration after it commits to an investment, with many of these companies making use of its Aliyun cloud infrastructure as the basis for their applications.
Aliyun also provides design and operating services for fintech applications and core banking software, with the company recently developing an online finance platform for mid-tier lender Bank of Nanjing.
Ant Financial’s recent ascent to the position of the world’s largest fintech company has been heavily abetted by the use of Alipay as a rapid online lending platform.
According to a report from Bloomberg Ant Financial’s loan book became 3.7 times larger than that of China’s second larger lender, China Construction Bank, following the extension of almost USD$95 billion in loans to consumers during the period from the start of 2017 to March 2018
