Tag Archives: ZestFinancial

FINANCE: Alibaba Banks, JD Credit Scores As Old Lenders Watch

Bottom line: China needs to let traditional banks behave more independently and encourage them to take risks, or risk seeing them overtaken by private, entrepreneurial financial companies.

Alibaba bank goes online

China’s 2 leading e-commerce companies were in the headlines last week with major new moves in the financial services sector, continuing a trend that has seen private firms pose the first serious challenge in decades to China’s banking establishment. One move saw Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) launch its online bank, MYbank, as part of a Beijing pilot program to allow private companies into the sector. The other saw JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) form a credit scoring joint venture, aiming to tap its huge volumes of transaction data to help rate the creditworthiness of individuals. Read Full Post…