JD.com will buy a third of Allianz’s China general insurance business for 537 million yuan (US$85.4 million) as part of its expansion into financial services. 

The purchase will make Beijing-based JD.com the second-largest shareholder in the insurance company, behind only Allianz Group, according to a JD spokesman. The acquisition is subject to government approval. 

JD.com, China’s second-largest e-commerce company, has spun off its finance arm into a separate company in part to enable it to expand further into the payments business and other financial services. CEO Richard Liu Qiangdong has said the company will push further into insurance and online brokerage and has set a target for JD Finance to become one of the top three fintech companies in the world by 2020. 
JD Finance operates a crowdfunding platform and a platform that connects early-stage enterprises with the financing and business development services. 

Allianz China General Insurance offers a wide range of insurance services including auto, property, liability, marine, engineering, and domestic credit insurance, as well as short-term health insurance and accident insurance for individual and corporate clients, according to its website. 
Alibaba Group, the parent company of South China Morning Post, competes with JD.com in e-commerce. Alibaba’s affiliate, Ant Financial, has been linked to a funding round that could value the financial company at US$150 billion.