Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate that operates Alipay and other financial services in China, has announced plans to roll out blockchain technology for payments.
Coin Journal reported that the technology will be first applied to Alipay’s donation platform to improve transparency and provide a trust mechanism with each payment and spending of donations recorded on the blockchain.
In April, Ant Financial closed the world’s largest private fundraising round for an Internet company at $4.5 billion. The privately held company now has a valuation of around $60 billion. It has further raised the concept of “patient capital” or long-term capital, where the investor is willing to make a financial investment in a business with no expectation of turning a quick profit.
“Patient capital has all the discipline of venture capital — demanding a return, and therefore rigor in how it is deployed — but expecting a return that is more in the 5 to 10 percent range, rather than the 35 percent that venture capitalists look for, and with a longer payback period”, Thomas Friedman explained.
A new blockchain-based model may help non-profit organizations increase self-sufficiency and turn donations into a more sustainable endeavor. Coin Journal reported that Ant Financial and the Microfinance Management arm of China’s Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) will together expand a model that takes targeted measures to empower people to lift themselves out of poverty with the help of the internet and now blockchain technology to over 300 national and provincial counties within three years.
