Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (NYSE:BABA) Ant Financial is valued $50 – $60 Billion

Carol Harper
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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (NYSE:BABA) Ant Financial is valued $50 – $60 Billion

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) founder, Jack Ma’s Ant Financial, which is engaged in online payments, is valued between $50 and $60 billion based on the recent fund raising round. In the second round of funding, it was valued at $45 billion. The current fund raising puts the valuation behind Uber that was valued about $62 billion in December last year when it raised funds. Additionally, its valuation was better than the Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi, which was worth $45 billion in 2014.

Enjoy Good Market Share of Online Payments

But, details about the amount of funds to be raised by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA)’s Ant Financial was not disclosed. The fund raising is likely to be completed next month. The financial arm of the Chinese e-commerce company preferred to remain silent on the issue. Currently, Jack Ma is the biggest shareholder of Ant Financial and that the e-commerce firm did not own any stake formally.

Alipay, the online payment processor, is the principle asset of the financial firm. It processed payments for both Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), as well as, Tmall shopping websites. As a result, it enjoys a market share of 58% of online payments in China with a gross merchandise value of about RMB 12,794.2 billion. That was based on Credit Suisse research note last month.

Experimental Credit Rating Services

Apart from that, Ant Financial also promoted Sesame Credit, which is engaged in an experimental credit rating services. That draws huge trove of user data from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), as well as, MyBank, which was an internet bank focused at lending to small enterprises. It included a money market fund, Yue Bao. On the whole, the financial arm is said to be claiming 400 million active users on an annualized basis.

Meanwhile, Ant Financial indicated that it was working towards an IPO. However, the company did not disclose the timing of such issue. Previously, Ma indicated that there were plans for IPO in China though he also refused to provide the timeline. However, media reports indicated that it might likely happen next year.