Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) finance arm is strengthening its foothold in the insurance business, with plans to invest about 1.2 billion yuan (US$188 million) in a Chinese unit of Cathay Financial Holding Co.
Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co (螞蟻金服) is buying a 60 percent stake in Cathay Insurance Co (國泰人壽), as the two companies plan to link their systems and enhance cooperation on cloud computing, according to a statement yesterday.
The investment would allow Ant Financial to gain a license to develop insurance products and enter the business faster than by applying for its own license, a person familiar with the matter said, requesting not to be identified because the matter is private.
Ant Financial has ambitions to become a dominant online financial services provider, sometimes taking on powerful mainland China state banks on their own turf.
“Ant Financial is probably trying to explore the many opportunities that big data and insurance provide,” said Wang Weidong, an analyst at Internet consultancy iResearch in Beijing. “Ant Financial is taking a much more hands on approach, instead of just being a platform for insurance products.”
More than 200 million users of Ant Financial’s Alipay payment system already manage their wealth via financial products like Yu’E Bao, a money-market fund that pooled 613.4 billion yuan by June 30.
“We look forward to working together in other markets beyond mainland China and Taiwan,” Cathay Financial president Lee Chang-ken said.
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
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Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
Ashton Hall’s morning routine involves dunking his head in iced Saratoga Spring Water. For the company that sells the bottled water — Hall’s brand of choice for drinking, brushing his teeth and submerging himself — that is fantastic news. “We’re so thankful to this incredible fitness influencer called Ashton Hall,” Saratoga owner Primo Brands Corp’s CEO Robbert Rietbroek said on an earnings call after Hall’s morning routine video went viral. “He really helped put our brand on the map.” Primo Brands, which was not affiliated with Hall when he made his video, is among the increasing number of companies benefiting from influencer
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