Alipay Valuation Now 2X Goldman Sachs
It is amazing what Alipay has become in this world: largest fintech company in the world, with a value of more than $150 billion—twice as much as Goldman Sachs, handles more than three times as many transactions per second as Visa, and reaches more than 1 billion users around the world. China makes legends of commerce in big ways.
Fifteen years ago, the Chinese e-commerce giant (which was not a giant yet) Alibaba started a payment service to help people buy goods on its site. The service, known as Alipay, was comically clunky, relying on fax machines to create a secure way for buyers and sellers to make transactions remotely.
Jump forward to today, and Alipay has been spun out of Alibaba into a company of its own, called Ant Financial. In the process, Ant has become one of the largest fintech companies in the world, with a value of more than $150 billion—twice as much as Goldman Sachs. The company’s app, still called Alipay, can handle more than three times as many transactions per second as Visa, and reaches more than 1 billion users around the world. (Quartz)