5 noteworthy innovations by Ant Group since its inception

By Edil Corneille

Alibaba’s Ant Group, a technology services company and the parent organisation of Alipay, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The unicorn was officially founded in October 2014 and it originated from Alipay, initially an escrow service founded in 2004. Alipay was established by Alibaba with the aim to provide digital payment services to consumers and merchants on Alibaba’s platforms. While Ant Group is a prominent name in Asia, perhaps not many from the western world know about it. The organisation provides a platform and tools to allow partner financial institutions to serve underserved consumers and small businesses with inclusive financial services. Below are some of the major milestones achieved by the organisation in terms of FinTech innovations.

Digital Payments

Ant’s origins date to 2004 when Alipay was created to solve the trust issue in e-commerce between buyers and sellers in online transactions in China. The payment solution bridged the trust gap, facilitated online transactions, and is said to have underpinned the development of e-commerce in China. In 2009, the Alipay app which is a mobile payment app was launched with the objective to provide fast, convenient, and secure mobile payment solutions to consumers and merchants.

InsureTech

In 2010, the shipping return insurance was launched which was a scenario-based online insurance product in the country. The low-cost insurance product covers the purchaser’s shipping cost for returning products purchased on the Alibaba e-commerce marketplaces. The mutual aid program called Xianghubao, providing affordable and accessible wealth protection was launched in 2018. The group has mentioned that it works closely with partner insurers to co-design insurance products such as Haoyibao and Quanminbao and its mutual aid program, Xianghubao, which are said to be affordable, easy-to-understand and user-friendly, thereby raising awareness and adoption of health insurance and life insurance products at large scale.

InvestmentTech
Yu’ebao, a money market fund product, was launched in 2013 when the opportunity to allow consumers to generate yield on their Alipay account balances was identified. The financial investment product offers a simple and easy way for consumers to earn a return while allowing the funds to be instantly available for everyday purchases. It has an instant redemption feature, enabling consumers to shop with their Yu’ebao account instantaneously or redeem funds on the same day

CreditTech

In 2014, Huabei, a digital unsecured revolving credit product was launched for daily expenditures. Another product called Jiebei was launched in 2015. Jiebei is a short-term digital unsecured consumer credit product for larger consumption transactions, to meet the spending needs of Huabei users who develop a sufficient credit history.

BaaS open platform

In 2018, AntChain, a cross-border remittance services leveraging blockchain technology and the Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) open platform which supports diverse applications, was launched. Ant Group has revealed plans to expand the applications of AntChain and continue to enable the digitalisation of assets on AntChain as well as enable the circulation of digitalised assets on a wider scale. The group mentioned that it will develop new technology to build the digital infrastructure for new services, upgrade its infrastructure, improve its understanding of customers, and enable its partners.