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Chinese fintech giant Ant Group spent 20.46 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion) on research and development in 2022, doubling its expenditure from 2019, the company revealed in its latest sustainability report.
The funds were mainly for advancements in distributed databases, computing infrastructure, blockchain, privacy computing, data and network security, green computing, and AI, the company said.
With the help of green computing technologies, the firm reduced carbon emissions by over 62,100 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) in 2022. It also achieved operational carbon neutrality for the second consecutive year.
In the same year, Ant Group collaborated with its affiliate MyBank to establish the first nationwide green rating standard for SMEs in China. Through this initiative, MyBank facilitated the evaluations of 6.23 million SMEs for their green operations and environmental contributions, and it also provided green loans – those used for sustainability purposes – to 420,000 SMEs.
MyBank was founded in 2015 to focus on serving small businesses. So far, Ant Group and MyBank have served 86 million SMEs.
Alipay, Ant Group’s digital payments subsidiary, also provided mini apps for 3.95 million merchants to enhance their digital operations.
See also: From China with love: Digital banks Anext and GLDB aim to fill SME lending void in SG
Currency converted from Chinese yuan to US dollar: US$1 = 7.1 yuan.
Editing by Miguel Cordon and Dhania Putri Sarahtika
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