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1st LD-Writethru: Alibaba affiliate's new online lender to target SMEs

Xinhua, June 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial Services Group on Thursday launched an online lender that will offer loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a market undeserved by major financial institutions.

With 30 percent of its shares owned by Ant Financial, MYbank's five other shareholders include the billionaire-headed private firms Fosun Group and Wanxiang Group.

MYbank has 4 billion yuan (654.15 million U.S. dollars) of registered capital and will extend loans of no more than five million yuan, according to a statement by Ant Financial.

Jing Xiandong, president of Ant Financial, will serve as MYbank's board chairman.

MYbank was one of five new private banks approved by the China Banking Regulatory Commission in late 2014.

"SMEs, individuals and rural customers are MYbank's main targeted groups," said MYbank governor Yu Shengfa.

About two thirds of the bank's 300 employees are technicians as it was run as an Internet company and does not have physical branches. Therefore, the online lender's cost for extending loans are substantially lower than that of traditional banks.

Ant Financial also announced a joint venture with China National Investment & Guaranty Co. Ltd., and Hundsun Technologies Inc. on Thursday. They will collaborate on "Wang Jin She", an Internet-based financial assets exchange platform.

The platform is the first of its kind authorized by the government. Endi