Ant Financial of Alibaba Opens Up Blockchain Testing for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

The fintech Alibaba Group firm Ant Financial is in tests for a blockchain network meant to help small and medium businesses. Its senior director for technology and business innovation Jieli Li has spoken at the Wuzhen World Blockchain Summit. He said that the technology for the Ant Blockchain Open Alliance should be live soon, three months after the tests have ended.

Ant Financial Will Be Cautious when Selecting the Platform’s Nodes

In an interview for 8btc.com, the same Jieli Li has said that even if the blockchain is open for everyone, they will still be careful when selecting the nodes for the platform. Ant Financial will have certification and educational agencies functioning as nodes so that their network’s credibility increases. Its partners will be chosen according to the industries in which they activate and not the region they’re in, Li said. He didn’t specify which firms are going to work with Ant Financial, though.

What Is the Ant Blockchain Open Alliance Trying to Do?

The Ant Blockchain Open Alliance is looking to reduce the costs of services in all sorts of industries, also to expand the users’ reach to these services. The industries aimed are healthcare, finance, and others that people need at large. The project has been unveiled in September, and the company keeps adding partners ever since. The blockchain projects Ant Financial has been working on are a food tracking app and a system that can be used to monitor agri-products. The monitoring system project is done with Bayer as their partner.