The Chinese firms are part of a "Big Tech" group of firms challenging established banking and financial service organisations.

Asian e-commerce group Alibaba and its financial affiliate Ant Financial have changed a number of senior executive roles as part of restructuring that is taking place under the newly-appointed Daniel Zhang as chairman of Alibaba.

The changes also take place days after Alibaba, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Ant Financial Services Group entered into a strategic partnership.

Ant Financial has appointed Simon Hu as its new CEO, replacing Eric Jing, the unit reportedly said in a statement. (WealthBriefingAsia has contacted Ant Financial for further details and may update in due course). Jing will remain executive chairman of Ant Financial, a position he had held concurrently with the CEO title.

Hu joined Alibaba Group in 2005 and served as president of Ant Financial since November 2018. Before that, he held positions in Alibaba's cloud computing and SME loan divisions. Hu will report to Jing.

While serving a broad retail market, Ant Financial is by some definitions now a major player in Asian wealth management. “Big Techs” such as Google and Amazon are pushing into the financial services space, creating new competitive challenges to incumbent firms.

Ant Financial, widely known for its payment service Alipay, is readying for an initial public offering.

ICBC partnership
On 16 December, Ant Financial, Alibaba and ICBC – China’s largest bank by assets – said that they will work together to develop fintech offerings.

“Complementing each other’s strength, ICBC and the Alibaba digital economy have been working together to build a range of products. Our cooperation expands beyond payment and e-commerce to more areas including global corporate finance, scenario-based finance and financial innovation,” Chen Siqing, chairman of ICBC, said. 

The collaboration started as early as March 2005 when Alipay and ICBC joined hands to offer online payment services to users. ICBC was the first bank in China to partner with Alipay to deliver online payments, demonstrating the bank’s innovation and inclusivity.

Three quarters of the commercial banks in China are planning to, or have already, put in place strategies for digital transformation, according to the results of a survey released by National Internet Finance Association of China in October 2019.

In 2015, Ant Financial announced an “Internet Booster” plan to support the digital transformation of traditional financial institutions by sharing Alipay’s technological capabilities, alongside its move to open up its payment services to a wide range of online and offline businesses.