Ant Financial opens AI services to asset management firms

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba's affiliate Ant Financial on Wednesday said the company will share a full suite of AI capabilities with asset management companies in China to support their digital transformation.

The announcement comes after Caifuhao, an AI-powered corporate account on the Ant Fortune platform, has brought tangible benefits to 27 fund management companies since the account went into operation last year.

These companies have been able to increase their operational efficiency by 70 percent while reducing their overall costs by 50 percent, according to the company.

"By combining Ant Financial' s AI technologies with the capabilities of asset management companies in investor education and fund management, together we are making customized wealth management services more accessible for ordinary users," said Eric Jing, CEO of Ant Financial.

More than 100 asset management companies have signed up to join the Ant Fortune platform since its inception in 2015, representing over 90 percent of all fund management companies in China. 

This has resulted in more than 4,000 wealth management products being made available to tens of millions of individual Ant Fortune users.  

Ant Financial has accelerated its pace of opening up its technological capabilities in recent months to financial institutions.

Banks including Huaxia Bank, China Everbright Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, China CITIC Bank, and Bank of Tianjin have signed strategic cooperation agreements with Ant Financial to support the banks' digital transformation.