Alibaba pilots nonprofit elderly care service

Alibaba Group is testing a new model of elderly care through its "time bank," which makes every hour people spend advancing public welfare exchangeable for services for seniors, the company said on Tuesday.

According to a memorandum of understanding on cooperation signed between Alibaba Foundation and the bureau of civil affairs of Binjiang district in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, online Alibaba users will have a unified quantitative standard to evaluate their public welfare acts.

Alibaba also unveiled a set of criteria, the first in China to measure the value of voluntary service hours and philanthropic behaviors, with its basic unit named "public welfare hours."