Ant Financial recently raised an oversubscribed $10bn round which values the firm higher than Goldman Sachs, American Express and BlackRock; the Alipay product has more than 500 million users and is incredibly simple to use; they have integrated into Alibaba’s retail operation and have the world’s largest money market fund with Yu’E Bao; they have begun expanding globally as well as they have built partnerships with firms in Africa and have tried to enter the U.S. market through an acquisition of MoneyGram which was blocked by regulators; regulators will need to figure out how handle a company that doesn’t look to fade from the financial scene anytime soon. Source.
