Ant Financial to roll out blockchain tech for payments

Blockchain tech will be first applied to Alipay’s donation platform to increase transparency and provide a trust mechanism with each payment and spending of donations recorded on the blockchain.

Ant Financial and the Microfinance Management arm of China’s Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), China’s non-governmental organization that specializes in poverty alleviation, have reached a strategic co-operation agreement to expand a model that takes targeted measures to help people lift themselves out of poverty with the aid of the internet and now blockchain tech to more than 300 national and provincial counties within three years.

Unlike America’s internet giants, the Chinese equivalent have begun exploring and investing in blockchain technology. Baidu, China’s google, invested in Circle, one of the biggest bitcoin companies. Tencent, owners of Wechat, joined a financial blockchain consortium with 30 other finance and tech firms and Ping An Bank, one of China’s financial conglomerates, joined R3.

China’s banking infrastructure is not as developed as in the west. Some are therefore speculating that blockchain tech and the internet may allow the country to leapfrog the banking system just as cell phones allowed developing nations to leapfrog phone lines.

According to a Citigroup report, fintech companies in China have passed the tipping point, with more customers, some 450 million a month, using Ant Financial’s Alipay and other fintech apps than traditional banks. Blockchain technology, therefore, may find readier adoption in the world’s second biggest economy as shown by its dominance in bitcoin trading and mining.