NewFrom brick-and-mortar malls to e-finance: Can China’s richest man Wang Jianlin find success in new field of online business?
Dalian Wanda chairman aims to leverage on good business in his shopping centres to help build up his new e-finance operation
China’s richest man, Dalian Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin, is banking on brick-and-mortar stores to realise his latest ambition of developing the country’s most successful privately owned internet finance business.
In a lengthy interview with mainland financial magazine Caixin, Wang spoke about how he expected his property company-turned-conglomerate to eventually outdo its internet counterparts in e-finance.
Wang topped Forbes’ China rich list this year with his personal wealth growing nearly US$17 billion – equivalent to Iceland’s gross domestic product – to US$30 billion.
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“It’s well known that Wanda’s biggest advantage is offline resources – there’s a huge amount of foot traffic [in our shopping malls], so we just need to take full advantage of that,” Wang said.
Simply making shopping malls go digital by developing an e-commerce platform to combine online and offline resources was not sufficient to make it profitable, he said.
The tycoon has a better plan: Under his newly established financial holding company, Wang will create an e-finance subsidiary. And the subsidiary will include his e-commerce platform Feifan, which is expected to be turned into a firm focused on data analysis; Wanda-owned third-party payment company Kuaiqian; an individual-focused credit-checking company that will be set up soon, as well as an online loan service.
“By 2020, the foot traffic in our shopping malls will reach 20 billion people. If one person goes to our shopping malls 40 times, we will have a base of 500 million [regular] customers,” Wang said.
“The consumption data collected from these customers can offer basis for credit-checking.”