A giant electronic board showing the online transaction value on Alipay. (Photo : Reuters)
The prospect of Ant Financial's initial public offering (IPO) taking place in 2016, or possibly the year after that, has led to a hive of media activity.
The financial arm of Jack Ma's Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. has been slated for a stock-exchange launch on previous occasions and, if the observations of the Wall Street Journal's Aaron Back are to be taken seriously, President Xi Jinping's office is also on board the Ant Financial IPO train.
In his Sunday appraisal, Back seemed to have no doubt left in his mind, as the journalist concluded: "Ant Financial has backing from Beijing and the state-dominated financial sector."
In support of his theory, he presented "revealing" information.
Firstly, Ant Financial's selection of China International Capital Corp. (CICC) is relevant because the company is part-owned by Beijing. Back states that CICC was previously involved with the listings of the Agricultural Bank of China and the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, which are two of China's largest state-owned banks.
Furthermore, Back asserts that because governmental policy body China Development Bank (CDB) and state-owned Postal Savings Bank of China are part of the list of investors, the support from Beijing is glaringly obvious.
Alipay is currently China's most widely used online payment platform, leading to a total valuation of Ant Financial at somewhere between $35 and $40 billion.
None of Alibaba's representatives have spoken to the media as of Sunday, but it is believed that the Postal Savings Bank of China and CDB will both receive 3-percent stakes.
