Eric Jing, Ant Financial’s executive chairman and CEO, revealed that Alipay now has over 700 million annual active users — an increase of more than 200 million year on year. Jing made the comments at Alibaba’s 2018 Investor Day, where he gave a presentation on the company’s various technology capabilities.
He explained that Ant Financial is focused on developing industry leading, financial-grade technologies in blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), security, Internet of Things (IoT) and computing (BASIC). In addition, AlipayHK and GCash launched a global cross-border remittance service this summer, based on the company's proprietary blockchain technology.
Jing spoke about how Ant's AI-driven credit assessment technologies have allowed financial institutions (FIs) to instantly provide lines of credit to approximately 11 million small businesses. With the help of AlphaRisk, Ant Financial’s AI-powered risk engine, Alipay’s fraud-loss rate has been reduced to lower than 5 in 10 million.
As for Alipay, Jing's news comes after the company announced that the mobile payment app had a great summer, with consumer spending surging over the last two months.
“China is just back from a two-month summer holiday, where millions traveled abroad for a long-awaited vacation. With Alipay’s growing presence outside of the Chinese mainland, overseas Alipay spending skyrocketed this summer compared to last year’s figures,” wrote Ant Financial, which owns and operates Alipay, in a press release.
Ant said Alipay processed 2.6 times as many in-store, overseas transactions this summer compared to summer 2017. In addition, Asia dominated the list of Top 10 countries and regions in terms of summertime transactions using Alipay, with Hong Kong at number one, followed by Thailand and South Korea.
The data also showed that the number of Alipay transactions in Russia went up over 5,000 percent, as many Chinese travelers journeyed to the country for this year’s World Cup. In addition, countries in Northern and Western Europe — including Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland — boasted double-digit growth in Alipay transaction volume.
