Alipay's owner wants to monopolize the payment industry in China

• Ant Group launches the blockchain-based platform for trade settlements.
• The move may strengthen the Chinese pivot to digitalization ahead of the digital yuan launch.

Ant Group, the Chinese mobile payment app Alipay owner, launched "Trusple," a blockchain-based platform for cross-border trade settlements. 

What is Trusple

The new platform will be matching buyers and sellers' orders, automatically generating smart contracts with information about the trade, while banks of the parties of the trade will process payments via Antchain blockchain. 

"Trusple was designed to solve problems for SMEs and financial institutions involved in cross-border trading. Just like when Alipay was introduced in 2004 as the online escrow payment solution to build trust between buyers and sellers, with the launch of AntChain-powered Trusple, we look forward to making cross-border trading safer, more reliable, and more efficient for buyers and sellers, as well as for the financial institutions that serve them," Guofei Jiang, President of Advanced Technology Business Group, Ant Group said in the press release.

The platform partners with the leading financial institutions, including BNP Paribas, Citibank, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank to facilitate the payment process.

Blockbuster IPO

Ant Group, previously known as Ant Finance, is a technological giant with a 16-year history in e-commerce and finance. It is an affiliate company of the Chinese Alibaba Group and the world's highest-valued FinTech company with a valuation of US$150 billion.

The company goes to IPO in October and plans to list its shares simultaneously in Hong Kong and Shanghai's STAR Market Index. The company seeks to raise $35 billion, and if everything goes according to the plan, this initial public offering will become the largest in the world. 

Pivot to digitalization

AntChain blockchain behind the Trusple platform is built on top of three layers, including the Blockchain-as-a-Service open platform, digitalization of assets, and circulation of digitalized assets. The hi-tech giant's new platform will have enormous influence in the e-commerce and payment industry and foster the Chinese pivot to digitalization. 

Late in 2019, President Xi Jinping made the blockchain development a priority for the country and triggered an explosive growth of all forms of digital ledger solutions. 

Now China is moving fast towards the launch of the digital version of yuan, also known as DC/EP. Trusple may become a platform that will promote the new currency into mass adoption in China and beyond.

 

---