MYBank offers small traders a foot on financial ladder

MYBank, the online lending affiliate of Ant Financial Services Group, said on Thursday it aims to extend financial services to 30 million small-and-micro enterprises and individual businesses in China over the next three years by teaming up with 1,000 financial institutions.

The bank would do this by opening up technological capabilities to its partners such as the use of artificial intelligence in credit evaluation and risk control, said Eric Jing, chief executive officer of Ant Financial.

AI can even monitor the entire business cycle and predict incoming financing needs from these smaller clients, such as surging capital demand for stockpiling ahead of the Nov 11 discount gala, said Jing.