The Ant Group is slated to go public with a valuation around $200bn, which makes it the world’s highest valued fintech company; while it is known across Asia it is still not a household name in the U.S.; The Ant Group is an affiliate of Alibaba, sometimes referred to as the Amazon of China; Ant was formed as a holding company in 2014 to house Alipay and other financial services like loans and wealth management; Alipay has become a dominant payments force within China and more recently around the world; The Ant Group, which was previous known as Ant Financial, has shifted the view of the firm to become a technology provider to other financial companies with the Chinese government beginning to crackdown on the fintech market; the company intends to go public through a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, with relations between the U.S. and China more strained a U.S. listing was not possible. Business Insider.
