Ping An Bank, a subsidiary of China’s Ping An Insurance Group, will launch a boutique bank using blockchain, cloud services, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Ping An Insurance Group is one of the world's leading financial and insurance corporations, and their subsidiary’s announcement was reported on Nov. 20 by People’s Daily, China’s official state run press service.

A boutique bank is defined as a non-full service investment bank that supports more individualized services than larger firms.

The new boutique bank will rely on Ping An Group's scientific and technological skills and comprehensive financial capabilities to provide integrated financial services to enterprises through Ping An Bank's supply chain receivables service platform, entitled "SAS.” The article states that the authenticity of transactions will be provided by the SAS platform.

Ping An Bank is undergoing a series of business changes under the auspices of financial technology, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI), big data, blockchain, and cloud computing in order to “ensure low-cost, efficient and personalized public services,” the People’s Daily reports.

People’s Daily adds that the use of the aforementioned technologies will “improve management and service levels and achieve comprehensive management, marketing, risk control, wealth management, payment, operations and financing.”

Last week, Ping An Insurance Group and the Sanya municipal government signed a strategic cooperation agreement for “Smart City” construction, based on “blockchain, [...] biometrics, and other technologies,” Cointelegraph reported Nov. 14.

Back this summer, Liechtenstein bank Union Bank AG announced its goals to become “the world’s first [...] full-service blockchain investment bank,” and issued its own security tokens, Cointelegraph wrote Aug. 22.