Ant Financial shared lots of their views on the future of the blockchain and announced some huge plans at Yunqi Conference (aka The Computing Conference) that took place in Hangzhou. CEO and Chairman of Ant Financial, Jing Xiandong (Eric Jing) made two big reveals. The first, the company plans to develop new blockchain partnerships. The second, the opening of the new BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) platform.

The BaaS platform is designed to create trust mechanisms. It supposes to build faith in these new financial areas and helps to decrease the cost of transactions.

Jing mentioned the new key venture partnerships with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Xinhua Zhiyun, Accenture, Standard Chartered Bank and Aisino (Nuonuo).

In his speech, Jing remarked,

Blockchain is not just about cryptocurrency. it’s also a trusting mechanism. We believe the blockchain is going to add huge value to the trustworthiness of the [financial] sector.

Ant Financial has been at the forefront of blockchain technology, with their parent group Alibaba maintaining the top spot in Chinese enterprise supporters of the blockchain. The most of the patents come from Ant Financial.

The BaaS platform is going to be a key part of the company’s tech strategy. Jing indicated that the company was currently focusing on what they call basics: Blockchain, AI, Security, Cloud Services – opening these areas to more partners and users.

Plans for supporting a new application development

Ant Financial has set up their STS (Shoulder To Shoulder) Alipay Technological Innovation Fund, which has raised a billion RMB ($146 275 000,00) in just 3 years. The fund offers the financial and technological support to the app developers. They also intend to provide various blockchain services including service cooperation, marketing, brand building and more.

Alipay has been very active on the app development market this year. While competitors like WeChat keep relying on a social networking to launch new apps.

Ant Financial uses its own luminous advantages, targeting different small and medium-sized merchants to cooperate with. Of course, all the big players are seeking for space in the App market, but each has different strategies. The competitive business climate is always positive for a dynamic outcome in the future.