Ant Financial backs AI, blockchain as it aims for two billion users
Alibaba's payments arm, Ant Financial, is targeting two-billion customers globally in 10 years by working with technology such as AI and blockchain to tap the under-served market, according to CEO Eric Jing. The firm is looking at blockchain to give a higher level of security to its Alipay Wallet, which currently has over 450 million users, and already introduced the technology into its charitable donation service.
Alibaba's payment affiliate Ant Financial is aiming to have 2 billion customers in 10 years, the chief executive of the $60 billion firm told CNBC, adding that the Chinese giant is exploring further uses of blockchain technology.

Ant Financial runs the Alipay mobile wallet in China which has over 450 million users. But Eric Jing, the CEO of Ant Financial, said the aim is to more than quadruple that over the next decade.

"We have an ambition to be a global company," Jing told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"So my vision (is) that we want to serve 2 billion people in the next 10 years by using technology, by working together with partners … to serve those underserved."