Ant Group, formerly dubbed as Ant Financial and Alipay, one of the world’s most recognized Fintech firm of Chinese origin and a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group Holding (a tech multi-national with expertise in eCommerce, technology, retail, and internet) plans to proceed with its application for a digital banking license in Singapore. The firm has taken this step despite its record USD 37 billion concurrent listings in China and Hong Kong has been frozen for now.
As per a report by The Straits Times, it’s business as usual in Singapore and other key markets for the financial services firm.
Microsoft Corporation recently disclosed that the company is working on a deal with the Ant Group-supported Indonesia enterprise Bukalapak. The tech company confirmed that it anticipates investing in the digital commerce platform.
According to Reuters, Bukalapak plans to deploy Microsoft’s Cloud platform, Azure. Bukalapak’s workforce will also receive digital skills training in order to perform their activities more efficiently.
Despite the paused IPO plans, Ant Group will still be able to expand its operations. However, the SCMP reports that the fintech firm might take several months to evaluate the fallout from regulatory changes. If Ant is able to adhere to compliance and updated rules, it has chances of successfully carrying out its IPOs.
As revealed by the SCMP, the reason behind Ant’s IPO must have brought the firm’s worth at around USD 359 billion, which might have been considerably higher than JP Morgan, one of the largest US banks (and sixth-largest in the world in terms of assets). If the recent listings were successful, the Ant Group had the chance of being valued higher than the state bank ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China).
As reported, the decision to halt the public listing was apparently because of the statements by Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba and creator of Ant, that managed to upset the government officials.
