High hopes for Alibaba-backed fintech

A SOUTH-EAST Asian financial technology (fintech) firm backed by Chinese giant Alibaba and Thai conglomerate CP Group is looking to tap the significantly unbanked market in the region. In doing so, Ascend Money also hopes to, in time, create a credit-rating scheme that takes in scoring based on customers' social behaviour.

Ascend Money aims to serve 100 million underserved consumers by 2020 - five times its customer base. This speaks to the large number of people in Asean who have no banking relationship, or have no means to get loans, said its chief executive Punnamas Vichitkulwongsa.

"We call it the vicious cycle of the poor, or the underserved."

As more than 60 per cent of people in the region lack a bank account, Ascend Money has built a mobile wallet that essentially functions as a non-interest bearing account to take in salaries of factory workers. These workers are in markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines, and can use Ascend Money's service for bill paymen…