Ant Financial Capitalizes on Open Banking Amid Pandemic

Alibaba-backed Ant Financial grew its client base of mainland Chinese lenders by 175 percent in just two months through April this year, as the nation grappled with the ongoing pandemic.

Paying customers from the banking sector grew to over 200 (out of around 4,500 nationwide) during the period which also saw collaboration-related inquiries surge 400 percent.

Ant Financial, formerly known as Alipay, was able to capitalize on open banking opportunities in a timely fashion as more than 800 branches were permanently shuttered, according to Chinese regulators, which placed pressure on brick-and-mortar lenders to seek income elsewhere. This was especially the case for players that lacked scale for in-house development.

The bigger banks might want to build their own private cloud, but we’re targeting the smaller lenders who might not have the budget to build their entire online infrastructure from scratch,» said Liu Xin, who oversees the fintech giant’s cloud unit, in a Bloomberg report.

One successful user of Ant’s open banking solutions was Shenzhen Rural Commercial Bank Co. which was able to cater to significantly increased traffic and heightened digital demands. It managed to cut loading time on its app by four-fold to less than half a second to meet the various needs of its 15 million retail customers.

According to the bank, nearly all of its transactions during the height of the outbreak were executed online.

While we’ve always prioritized mobile development, the growing demands from our customers made us realize our existing infrastructure wasn’t enough,» said Zhan Bin, head of the network finance department at Shenzhen Rural Commercial Bank.