About Company
Ant Group, erstwhile Alipay and Ant Financial, is an associate organization of the China-based Alibaba Group with its head office in Xihu District, Hangzhou, China.
Ant Group is the owner of Alipay, the biggest digital payment platform in China, which caters to more than eighty million businesses and one billion subscribers, with an overall disbursement amount attaining CN¥ 118 trillion in 2020 June.
In 2019 March, The Wall Street Journal described that the flagship money-market fund of Ant Group, Tianhong Yu’e Bao was the biggest in the world, serving more than 588 million subscribers, or over 1/3rd of the population of China, donating money to it.
In 2020 October, Ant Group was ready to collect US $34.5 billion in the biggest IPO in the world at that period, assessing the firm at the US $313 billion.
On the day before the launch of the IPO, China halted the procedure to go ahead.
There were reports that Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party himself, spoiled the Ant Group IPO.
On April 12, 2021, The Wall Street Journal brought out news that under the insistence of the Chinese administration, the Ant Group would be switched to a financial holding company supervised by the nation-regulated central bank of China.
When was Ant Group established?
The Ant Group was founded on October 16, 2014, seven years back in Hangzhou, Zhejiang.
Who is the founder of Ant Group?
The originator of Ant Group is Jack Ma, a China-based mogul, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. He is the erstwhile Executive Chairman and co-founder of Alibaba Group, an international tech behemoth.
Where is the head office of the company situated?
The group has its main office in Xihu District, Hangzhou, China.
Which area does Ant Group serve?
The company serves a worldwide client base.
What are the products and services provided by Ant Group?
The products and services provided by Ant Group are as follows:
- Banking
- Electronic payment processing
- Mobile payment
What are the famous brands under Ant Group?
The popular brands under Ant Group are:
- Yu’ebao
- Alipay
- Xianghubao
- Huabei
To which sector does Ant Group belong?
The Ant Group belongs to the following industries:
- Financial services
- Technology
- Payment processor
What type of company is Ant Group?
The Ant Group is a publicly-traded company.
Which companies were the forerunners of Ant Group?
The forerunners of this company were:
- Ant Financial Services Group (2014-2020)
- Alipay Financial Services (2014)
Which firms own Ant Group?
The following firms are the stakeholders of the group:
- Hangzhou Junhan Investment – 29.86%
- Hangzhou Alibaba Network Technology – 32.65%
- Hangzhou Jun’ao Investment – 20.66%
How many employees work for Ant Group?
Approximately 16,660 people are working with the group.
Which are the subsidiaries of Ant Group?
Given below are the names of the subsidiaries of Ant Group:
- Huabei (also known as Ant Credit Pay) – A virtual credit card form of merchandise that assists credit disbursements.
- Alipay is a mobile wallet application that aids in making and receiving payments.
- Jiebei (also known as Ant Cash Now) is a customer loan facility.
- MYbank – It is a privately-held, cloud-oriented online banking institution that is one of the six state-operated financial service providers to run the digital Yuan in the country. Ant Group is the 30% stakeholder of the subsidiary bank.
- Ant Insurance Services
- Ant Fortune – It is an all-inclusive wealth management application.
- ZOLOZ – It is a worldwide biometric-oriented identity authentication platform.
- WorldFirst – It is a worldwide forex platform for multinational organizations and individuals.
- Zhima Credit is an automated credit scoring and filling facility for individuals.
- Sa Si Digital Technology – It is a SaaS (Software as a service) concentrating on technology transfer, software development, and server integration for financial ventures.
- Shuzi Mali (also known as Digital Horsepower Information Technology) is a software-as-a-service or SaaS trade organization that offers software and tech advisory services.
Which are some of the esteemed clients of Ant Group?
Given below are the names of some of the most reputed clients of the group:
- India– Paytm
- Pakistan – Easypaisa
- Bangladesh – bKash
- India – Zomato
- South Korea – KakaoPay
- Thailand – Ascend Money
- Indonesia – Emtek
- Malaysia – Touch’n Go eWallet
- Philippines – GCash Inc.
- South Africa – Vodacom
- Hong Kong – Cheung Kong Hutchinson
How many users does Ant Group have?
Because of its large scale of operations, the Ant Group features one billion subscribers in China.
Which are the controversies associated with Ant Group?
1) Link with Megvii
The group is one of the oldest venture capitalists for Megvii, a firm located in Beijing famous for offering AI goods to different enterprises and Ant also. In May 2019, there were statements from Human Rights Watch that discovered the Face++ code in the IJOP or Integrated Joint Operations Platform, which is a police information setup utilized by the Xinjiang administration for mass surveillance, specifically in association with the Uyghur population.
Subsequently, Human Rights Watch published a rectification in its statement in June 2019, mentioning that Megvii didn’t seem to have cooperated with the Integrated Joint Operations Platform. The Face++ code in the application was dysfunctional.
Afterward, the Trump government included Megvii’s name into the Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List, alleging that it took part in human rights infringements in the Chinese administration’s movement versus Uyghurs’ other ethnic groups in Xinjiang.
2) Sharing customer info with the Chinese administration
In January 2021, The Wall Street Journal stated that the controllers of China were attempting to make the company share the stores of confidential information in its lifestyle and disbursement application, Alipay, utilized by more than a billion customers.
The information comprised the expenditure behavior of customers, borrowing habits, and disbursement records.
As stated by individuals conversant with the concern, formerly, Jack Ma balked at the efforts of the administration to seize the information held by Ant.
At the end of December 2020, the apex bank of China censured Ant for its “disobedience of regulative requirements” and necessitated the firm streamline its trade.
3) Beijing controllers and Alipay rip-off
On August 15, 2021, Andy Kessler, venture capitalist, and business columnist, penned in The Wall Street Journal that “earlier while Alibaba was privately held, Jack gained at the time the Chinese apex bank and Chinese governors pushed for an extension of Alipay, their payment setup, essentially purging worth from prevailing Alibaba stakeholders, such as SoftBank and Yahoo, and offering it to depositors in China. This was a cash rip-off.”
Though there is no express proof or claim that the office bearers of Alibaba influenced Chinese bureaucrats, the brochure of Ant IPO featured a complicated proprietorship arrangement with Hangzhou Junao holding 20.66%, Hangzhou Junhan is holding 29.86%, and Alibaba itself owning 32.65%.
In the interim, a different organization called Hangzhou Yunbo regulates the top 2 shareholders, Hangzhou Junao and Hangzhou Junhan, as their universal and managerial collaborator.
Jack Ma was the sole biggest shareholder of Yunbo with 34%.
Three other functionaries of Ant Group, Simon Hu (CEO), Eric Jing (Chairman), and Jiang Fang (non-executive director), owned equivalent shares in the residue of Yunbo, with 22% apiece.
Ant Group, Inc. Management
Eric Jing (Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Mr. Eric Jing serves as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman of Ant Group. In 2007, he became a part of Alibaba Group and was nominated as Ant Group President in June 2015. In October 2016, Jing got the appointment as the Chief Executive Officer of the group, and in April 2018, took over the extra responsibility of the Chairman.
Under the guidance of Jing, the group’s policy is centered upon comprehensiveness, resilience, and multiculturalism to fetch minor but striking transformations in the world. The goal of Ant Group is to aid digital switchover with collaborators across the globe and facilitate all customers and small-scale commercial enterprises with identical accessibility to economic and other utilities.
Eric has been associated with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as a leading consultant and is an affiliate of the Young Global Leaders Foundation Committee of the World Economic Forum. He has also been a part of the Social Unit of the UN Secretary-General on the Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Eric is devoted to bettering economic incorporation and endorsing the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) worldwide to boost maintainable growth.
Eric graduated from the College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University in engineering in 1994. Jing attained an MBA degree in 2005 once he finished the Executive MBA course from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, US.
Ni Xingjun (Chief Technology Officer)
Xingjun has served as the Chief Technology Officer since 2020 August and Executive Director since 2020 July. Ni became a part of Alipay China in December 2004 and is a fundamental originator of Alipay who, along with other fundamental associates, performed the groundwork for consecutive editions of the procedural structure of Alipay and formulated the former editions of Alipay.
From 2004 December to 2020 June, Ni functioned as product architect, developer, chief of product technology of Alipay China’s business team, chief of platform product, president of the tech platform of Alipay China’s business team, and president of Alipay China’s business team.
Xingjun has served as a Longshine Technology Group Co., Ltd. non-independent director, a firm registered with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in August 2017, and the stock code was 300682 since April 2015.
Xingjun received a college diploma from the Zhejiang Institute of Finance and Economics in accounting in July 2000, presently recognized as the Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics. He also attained an Executive MBA degree in November 2016 from China Europe International Business School.
Cyril Han (Chief Financial Officer)
Cyril Xinyi Han has been serving as the Chief Financial Officer since April 2020. Cyril became a part of Ant Group in May 2014 and has functioned as the vice president and senior director of the organization. Before that, Mr. Han became associated with Alibaba in September 2011 as a senior business finance division director.
Before getting the appointment from Alibaba, Cyril served the investment banking unit of China International Capital Corporation from July 2001 to September 2011. Cyril has also served as a Hundsun Technologies Inc. non-executive director, a firm registered with the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the stock code was 600570, and an affiliate of Ant Group, since 2016 February, a ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co. Ltd. non-executive director, a firm registered with the Principal Panel of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with the 06060 stock code, since 2013 October and a Yum China Holdings Inc. director, a firm registered with the NYSE with the ticker sign YUMC, since 2019 May.
Cyril received a bachelor’s degree in economics and a postgraduate degree in economics in July 1999 and June 2001 from Tsinghua University.
Ant Group, Inc. Financial Performance
The Ant Group chipped in with 6.5 billion yuan (the US $1 billion) to the profits of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., a filing indicated on 18th November 2021. Established on the 1/3rd stake of Alibaba Group in Ant, that converts to an approximate 19.71 billion Yuan in gains, 39% higher than last year’s. The net income of Ant falls one-quarter behind that of Alibaba.
Financial performance highlights
In 2019, the revenue of Ant Group was 120,618,000,000 renminbi/Yuan. The operating income for the year stood at 24,071,000,000 renminbi. The net income was 18,072,000,000 renminbi.
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