Where E-cash Is King

Chinas fintech giants are consolidating their gains and using their capital heft.

- Sara Hsu

China has experienced a fintech explosion in recent years, with top companies dominating the industry. It’s not an accident that Alibaba spinoff Ant Financial and Tencent rule digital payments, or that Yirendai and Lufax are major players in the online lending sector. All of these companies have garnered large amounts of investment, expanded into areas with high levels of demand and have successfully diversified out of their core business.

Ant Financial is not yet publicly listed, but it received Series C funding of $14 billion in June. While Tencent’s WeChat Pay is not part of a subsidiary, it continues to reap funding from Tencent investors. Tencent (see p. 45) is a juggernaut whose Hong Kong Stock Exchange shares, even after a recent dip, have risen 100-fold since its IPO in 2004. Its market cap reached a high of $577 billion in January. Creditease’s peer-to-peer lending company Yirendai is also listed, on Nasdaq with a market cap of $1.2 billion. Ping An affiliated Lufax has reportedly postponed a possible listing in Hong Kong but was said to be targeting another funding injection of $2 billion.