Alibaba's financial service affiliate Ant Financial is set to buy a 1.2 billion yuan controlling stake in Cathay Insurance, the company has announced. Ant Financial runs China's most popular online payment platform, Alipay.
Cathay Financial is one of Taiwan's largest financial holdings groups, covering insurance, securities, banking and other diversified financial institutions.
Ant Financial, operates the largest internet financial services platform in China Alipay, and other related internet finance business lines including Alipay Wallet, Sesame Credit and Ant Micro Loan. It also possesses a sizeable customer base and enormous volume of transaction data, which are critical assets for the development of internet finance.
The agreement will enable Cathay Financial Holdings to increase its exposure to the rapidly growing internet finance market and through a combination of traditional finance and internet business will work to create a new ecosystem for internet finance.
The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2015.
