When the chairman of one of the world’s biggest banks was asked recently how technology would change finance, he pointed to the rise of Ant Financial, the digital payments arm of Alibaba, China’s ecommerce colossus.
Ant Financial gained about 100m clients last year, taking its total above 500m, almost 10 times the level of the world’s biggest banks. The veteran chairman, who was unwilling to be quoted by name, noted that the Chinese group had thereby acquired a “huge amount of data” and “a great ability to make credit decisions”. The tone of jealousy was hard to miss.
Eric Jing, Ant Financial’s chief executive, is due tomorrow to speak alongside other big financial names at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a first-time appearance that illustrates how finance is being upended by digital disruption.