Alibaba payments arm aims for 2 billion users in 10 years

Ant Financial eyes sharp expansion in coming decade

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Signage for Ant Financial Services Group's Alipay payment system, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., is displayed on a store entrance in Shanghai, China. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 12:25am, 20 Jan 2017

Alibaba’s payment affiliate Ant Financial is aiming to have 2 billion customers in 10 years, the chief executive of the US$60 billion firm told CNBC, adding that the Chinese giant is exploring further uses of blockchain technology.

Ant Financial runs the Alipay mobile wallet in China which has over 450 million users. But Eric Jing, the CEO of Ant Financial, said the aim is to more than quadruple that over the next decade.

“We have an ambition to be a global company,” Jing told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “So my vision (is) that we want to serve 2 billion people in the next 10 years by using technology, by working together with partners … to serve those underserved.”

A sign of Alibaba Group is seen during the third annual World Internet Conference in Wuzhen town of Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China, late last year. Photo: Reuters

Ant Financial also offers other financial services including micro finance. Jing talked up the potential of artificial intelligence and blockchain – a distributed ledger system that experts have said could make many financial processes cheaper and quicker.

When asked by CNBC if Ant Financial is looking into blockchain technologies to underpin Alipay, Jing said “definitely”.

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