Ant, Asia’s one of the leading mobile payments company, will establish a consumer finance firm in Chongqing, China, media reports said. The move by the company comes at a time when it seeks to expand its business in the highly competitive domestic market.
The Alibaba’s fintech arm has already established its presence in China’s trillion dollar market as it has acquired financial licenses for services such as online banking, payments, micro lending and insurance.
It is reported that Ant is planning to team up with TransInfo Technology, an intelligence transport firm and Nanyang Commercial Bank to establish the consumer finance business. Once the deal is completed, Ant will acquire 50 percent of the stake, while the remaining stakes will be acquired by TransInfo Technology, 10 percent and Nanyang Commercial, 15 percent. Apart from these two companies, Amperex Technology, a battery maker will also join the business.
Ant along with the other companies plans to inject capital worth $1.2 billion in the new firm and sign an agreement this week. The company also applied for dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong last month and seeks to establish a fundraising worth $ 20 billion from the dual listing alone.
The latest move by Ant indicates its appetite for growth in the financial services space amid the Covid-19 pandemic which has hampered big economies. Other Chinese companies such as Tencent and Bytedance are also looking to grow their tech business outside China despite of trade tussle between the US and China.