The world’s largest financial technology company, Ant Financial Services Group, is in the process of acquiring U.S. money transfer company, MoneyGram International Inc. for about $880 million. Ant Financial Services Group is affiliated with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Ant is also the leading the online payment company in China and worth about $60 billion. China’s fintech companies are on the rise and it is said that China’s fintech companies are accounted for 46 percent of all venture capital investment globally in 2016. The combination of MoneyGram’s expansive networks and Ant’s technological knowledge, can create a strong and competitive multi-national company. However, Ant Financial Services Group has to get approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CIFIUS) in order to acquire MoneyGram International.
It is great to see fintech companies and traditional financial services companies converge as we are headed to an increasingly technology enhanced world. It will be interesting to see the transformation of the fintech industry especially since there will be more overlaps between domestic and foreign fintech companies.
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/01/26/business/26reuters-moneygram-intl-m-a-ant-financial.html