vice president of the European Union's strategic account at Ripple, said in a telephone interview that the company was looking to enter the Chinese market to accelerate international payments with its DLT. Light said that "China is clearly an attractive country and region." While blockchain is a technology that supports cryptocurrency, Ripple's blockchain was originally designed to accelerate payment processing, which then attracted more than 100 financial companies to its network. Although the Ripple portfolio includes leading financial industry players such as UniCredit, Santander, UBS and others, the company is likely to face strong competition from local fintech companies that offer payment solutions. In February, Ripple made efforts to enter the Chinese market by partnering with Chinese payment service provider LianLian to offer faster and cheaper cross-border transactions to their customers across the US, Europe and China.
Recently, technology giant Tencent has implemented the blockchain pilot ecosystem for invoicing, which allows the issuance of China's first digital invoices on blockchain. This is the only pilot who receives official approval from the State Tax Administration, and has been designed to be used comprehensively by consumers, traders and tax authorities.
Ant Financial, the company behind the mobile payment platform and online Alipay, signed a "definitive agreement" with investors to secure $ 14 billion in the Series C equity funding round in June. The company plans to invest funds into the Alipay blockchain acceleration and other innovative technologies to provide financial services to consumers who do not have bank accounts and are underbanked.
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