SINGAPORE, 15 April 2019 (Reuters) – Ant Financial Services Group, the dominant fintech player in China launched a mutual health aid plan amassed more than 50 million users and is aiming for 300 million within two years, the company said late on 11 April 2019.
The plan, dubbed Xiang Hu Bao or literally “mutual protection”, is marketed on Alipay, Ant Financial’s flagship mobile payment app and provides participants a basic medical coverage with the risks and expenses distributed across all members.
It has gained unexpected popularity among China’s “low-end population”, poorer sections of society, who struggle to afford medical services due to the government’s insufficient social healthcare system and are under-served by traditional commercial insurers as they cannot meet the premiums and advance payments required with commercial health insurance products.
Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial was spun off from e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Co Ltd, which went public in 2014 and has played a vital role in shaping the financial technology landscape in China, shaking up the state-controlled traditional banking, asset management and insurance sectors with disruptive new products.
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