Shanghai bank signs deal with Alibaba's Ant Financial
Ant Financial and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank executives signed the strategic collaboration deal at the Shanghai-based lender's headquarters yesterday.
Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and Ant Financial have signed a strategic deal with Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Financial to push forward the lender’s digital transformation.
The two parties' collaboration covers artificial intelligence, data-driven risk management, bio-metric customer verification and a supply chain partnership, according to a joint statement released yesterday.
The announcement came after similar deals were inked between Ant Financial and Everbright Bank and Huaxia Bank earlier this month.
Ant Financial will share its financial-grade technological capabilities and know-how with China Everbright Bank to help it develop private and hybrid cloud platforms, scalable open financial architecture, Internet finance architecture, and mobile architecture.
With digital technologies continuing to permeate daily life, every aspect of business operations and the financial sector, Ant Financial has been shifting from being an asset management or financial firm in its own right to further linking with more industry partners.
Ant Financial Executive Chairman and CEO Eric Jing said it will gradually open up its technological capability to current and potential partners, the only criterion being whether that partnership is innovative enough to deliver value to its users.
The company is also hoping to link its payment expertise with a wide range of public service sectors, such as public transportation, to drive smart urban management initiatives.
Ant Financial earlier this month also introduced two money market funds to Yu'e Bao, in addition to the existing fund by Tianhong Asset Management, in order to loosen capital pressure on the latter.
The two new funds will be connected to Yu'e Bao, literally meaning "Leftover Treasures", which was launched in 2013.
