Login
You are...
Products
Business account A professional account with far more comprehensive services than a traditional bank Collection Cash your customers quickly and easily Accounting Anytime provides invoicing software, facilitates your accounting and helps you with administrative formalities. Financing Discover a wide range of services to support your growth. Whether you're self-employed or a large company, our solutions are tailored to your needs. Cash Management View the banking position of all your activities in real time. Put in place an analytical vision of your flows and give meaning back to your banking operations.
Mastercard business cards Discover the services and Mastercard cards available to you. Corporate expense management Capped Mastercard cards with employee rights management. Managing association expenses The dedicated solution for associations to manage their business expenses. Insurance and legal protection Insurance is included in cards or packages, and meets the needs of both the self-employed and large companies. Chartered Accountants To make your life easier and avoid errors in your declarations, entrust your accounting to chartered accountants.
Expense management
Rates

Towards a record IPO for Ant Group

Published on September 16, 2020 - 2 mins reading time
Bank watch
Alibaba's payment and financial services subsidiary could soon sign the largest IPO in history. According to several sources, this would enable it to raise up to $30 billion, or more than €25 billion.

A super platform for financial products

Launched in 2004 by Jack Ma, Ant Group accounts for more than half of the mobile payments market in China with Alipay, and boasts 900 million users. Today, the application is three times larger than Paypal in terms of transactions. Like its competitor Wechat Pay, Alipay goes beyond payment by offering hundreds of associated services, such as the ability to book vacations, subscribe to financial products or book medical appointments.

Thanks to its broad distribution network for financial products, Ant Group recorded record inflows of $100 billion in 1 year on the Yu'Bao money market fund in 2017. The Group has also established itself in the household and small business credit market. Its sales, up 40% to 8.9 billion euros in the 1st half, are now based 43% on payments and 35% on credit. To reflect this diversification, Ant Financial was renamed Ant Group this year.

The largest listing operation in history

Ant Group's IPO, announced in a press release at the end of August, could be worth around $30 billion, according to sources. The Chinese giant's shares will be listed in Hong Kong and on a new platform launched in 2019 in Shanghai. The company, which is affiliated to e-commerce leader Alibaba, did not give any details on the timetable or the amount of the operation.

Citing sources close to the matter, Bloomberg reports that Ant Group could raise around €25 billion in the process. This would be the largest IPO since that of Saudi oil giant Aramco. In December 2019, the latter raised $29.4 billion on the Riyadh stock exchange.

With this transaction, Ant Group is responding to the Chinese government's call for domestic technology players to list on national stock exchanges at a time of tension and rivalry with the United States.

Partnerships with emerging countries

The strength of Alibaba's financial arm lies in its ability to conquer new markets. Ant Group is planning to establish itself on the Indian subcontinent, which is gradually catching up in the field of payment and e-commerce. The company is multiplying its partnerships with emerging countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and South Korea.