If you're like me, and I know I am, you just said "who?".
From the Financial Times, June 19:
Ant Financial, Alibaba’s online payments affiliate, has completed a fundraising that values the company at $45bn-$50bn, according to people close to the Chinese ecommerce group.The valuation would place Ant Financial among the world’s most valuable private technology companies, alongside smartphone maker Xiaomi and US car hailing app Uber.
Xiaomi was valued at $45bn last year, while Uber is reportedly in the process of raising funds that value it at $50bn.Ant Financial operates Alipay, the PayPal-like online payments company that handled $778bn in the year to end-June 2014, according to Alibaba.
That is three times the amount handled by US peer PayPal, and equivalent to one-third of the $2.5tn in total global online payments last year, according to Juniper Research.
Last year, Ant Financial was among a handful of internet companies given permission to open an internet bank, with the launch scheduled for next week....MORE
But of course.Wang Zhongmin, vice president of the National Social Security Fund, announced on Thursday that the fund had purchased 5 per cent of Ant Financial’s shares, saying it was their first direct investment.
He called it “the affair between the ant and the elephant”.
