Jack Ma's bank expanding into underserviced sector

SHANGHAI - MYbank, the two-year-old Chinese online lender that already has 3.5 million small-business customers, said it plans to push deeper into a segment that's long been ignored by the country's biggest banks.

MYbank wants to capitalize on its links with billionaire Jack Ma's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd by offering loans to the more than 10 million smaller businesses that use the company's e-commerce platforms, MYbank President Huang Hao said in a interview on Saturday.

The Hangzhou-based lender is controlled by Ant Financial, Alibaba's financial affiliate.