We look at (1) Ant Financial's key financial products, (2) the ways in which Ant poses a threat to incumbents, and (3) where incumbents can build, buy, and partner to compete.
Launched originally as the online payments gateway for Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace, Ant Financial is today the largest fintech platform in the world, spanning payments, wealth management, lending, credit scoring, and insurance.
To drive revenue, Ant has historically focused on payments through its mobile wallet Alipay, which has grown to over 1B users worldwide, according to the company. Now, it’s using its mobile wallet Alipay as a hook into its broader financial services ecosystem — where it charges financial institutions tech and service fees with high margins.
Ant is aggressively doubling down on offline payments by promoting Alipay use cases in fast food, department stores, public transportation, and more. This approach aims to bring more users into its ecosystem where it can serve them loans, insurance policies, and wealth products.
