Ant Financial, Alibaba’s financial services platform, announced the launch of a new project on Monday. Called “one thousand counties, one trillion yuan”, the project is aiming to help one thousand counties get RMB 1 trillion (USD 153 billion) in financial support from financial institutions in order to promote the development of county economies in China.
According to Ant Financial’s official Weibo, in the next three to five years, the company plans to boost and improve an “Internet+ city service platform” in 1000 counties across China. Combining its technical abilities with big data from county-level governments, the company hopes to build an overall financial ecosystem with financial institutions and social capital that will help provide trillions in financial support for entrepreneurship and innovation in county areas.
Anji, Zhejiang province became the first pilot-county of the project. Ant Financial is providing convenient financial services online in the county.
“Ant Financial has a good user base in Anji. The number of Alipay users in Anji amounts to 290,000, accounting for over 60% of the total population,” said Lin Guangyu, deputy general manager of Ant Financial’s Public Utilities Department.
According to ifeng.com’s tech channel, in addition to first and second-tier cities, Ant Financial’s Alipay city service functions such as social security inquiries, daily payments and housing accumulation fund inquiries have been distributed in the county area since last July.
（Top photo from news.mydrivers.com)