Hundreds of small banks in China are launching mobile banking apps and blockchain-based interbank trading capabilities, with the backing of one of the country’s largest insurance conglomerates.
Ping An Group’s OneConnect subsidiary has sold cloud banking products to more than 460 banks in China over the past four years, building everything from mobile banking applications to credit scoring for loans and financial products as well as platforms for interbank transactions around the banks’ core systems by using blockchain technology.
OneConnect offers to transform small and medium-sized banks’ outdated systems into a fully digital ones at a fraction of the cost and time it would take for the banks to do it themselves, said Jessica Tan, Ping An’s deputy group chief executive and chief operating officer.