Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter “Ping An” or “the Group” or “the Company”, HKEx: 2318; SSE: 601318) today showcased its world-leading fintech and healthtech achievements, which underpin its “Finance + Ecosystem” strategy. The Group expects to invest RMB 100 billion (US$15 billion) in technology R&D in the next decade to consolidate its technology leadership in the financial services industry.
At the Group’s Investor Day on technology today in Hong Kong, Jessica Tan, Deputy CEO, COO and CIO of Ping An Group, said, “Our consistent focus and investment in technology R&D is paying off. We have already established global leadership in the cutting-edge technologies of AI, blockchain and cloud computing, which will be driving innovations in the financial industry for years to come.”
Each year the Group invests one percent of its revenue in the R&D of fintech and healthtech. Ping An has invested US$7 billion in R&D in the past decade and expects to invest a total of RMB 100 billion (US$15 billion) in the coming ten years.
Ping An’s technology development is fundamental to the execution of its “Finance + Ecosystem” strategy, which is driving Group business growth. The core technologies of AI, blockchain and cloud computing has and will continue to empower the Group’s five ecosystems — financial services, health care, auto services, real estate services and smart city services. Through applying innovative technologies to these ecosystems, Ping An will be able to seamlessly engage with customers to offer simple, professional and relevant financial services to help them better their lives and to help Ping An growth its business.
Ping An’s technology development has four key advantages:
- Rich business scenarios – achieved from hundreds of cities and millions of businesses through its ecosystems.
- Massive real-life data – covered 880 million population across finance, transportation, healthcare, education and daily lives
- Strong talent – 5 research institutions; 23,000+ technical talents; 1,000+ top scientists and 2 overseas R&D centres
- Long-term sustained investment commitment – US$7 billion invested in the past decade; US$15 billion in next decade. Healthy long term profit growth and ROE, compared to traditional peers, allows Ping An to make significant long term investments in technology
In addition, Ping An’s five eco-systems have accomplished market-leading positions in many areas, including:
- Financial Services Ecosystem: OneConnect being the largest financial services SaaS (Software as a Service) platform, serving 483 banks (including 93% of city commercial banks), 42 insurers and 2,400 other financial institutions. The platform represents one of the largest commercial blockchain platforms in commercial deployment in the world, with 40,000 nodes involving 200 banks, 200,000 corporates, and 500 other commercial and government entities. TPS (Transactions per Second) of the blockchain is at 50,000.
- Healthcare Ecosystem: Good Doctor being the largest mobile health portal, with approximately 250 million users, (traffic being more than the next top 2-10 players combined).
- Auto Services Ecosystem: Autohome being the market leader connecting the largest online user volumes among auto buyers, OEMs and dealers in China. Its market capitalization increased more than 3 times after Ping An’s acquisition in 2016.
- Smart City Ecosystems: Ping An Smart City is a front runner in the sector in China covering 60+ cities, with 115 projects in progress, boasting the industry’s most comprehensive solutions that are deeply integrated with city government on administrative processes, management, services and technology.
Jessica Tan added: “Ping An’s strategy is guided by a vision to become a world-leading technology-powered financial services group. In the last decade, the Group has transformed its financial service offerings by using technology to pursue innovation, boost efficiency, cut costs, improve experience and manage risks. We have deployed our technology commercially in the market place and we are now exporting our technology by offering our solutions to other market players to use.”
The Group’s retail customers reached 182 million customers at the end of September this year. The internet user base using Ping An’s five ecosystems has surpassed half a billion, contributing more than a third of the 33.4 million new customers acquired in the first nine months of 2018.
In terms of technology outlook, Jessica said, “Technology advances are changing our lives and the way we do business. Ping An is leading the change in AI, blockchain and cloud, particularly in the five ecosystems of financial services, healthcare, auto, real estate and city services. Our technology is deployed and supporting our customers already, from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority eTradeConnect, to serving 3013 financial institutions, and to the person on their mobile looking for a loan to buy a car or seek medical advice or help their children’s education. AI, blockchain, and cloud are already helping people better their lives and achieve their life goals.”
NOTES TO EDITOR
Ping An outlined the achievements and development of its technologies and ecosystems at the Investor Day.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The failure in the past 70 years of AI was due to lack of computing power and data. Key to the development of AI in recent years is the availability of rich business scenarios and massive real-world data. These factors are a core advantage of Ping An. Ping An has the edge in AI because the Company has:
- Top Talent: 1,000+ AI experts, 5 AI research institutes, 10+ world-class institutes for cooperative research.
- Comprehensive Scenarios: Financial services company with full set of licenses, 5 ecosystems and 400+ AI application scenarios.
- Cutting-edge Technology: #1 in 7 international contests in Face/Micro-Expression Recognition/OCR.
- Massive Real-life Data: 30 years’ worth of financial expertise & data accumulation, 880 million consumers, and 84 million+ enterprise data, financial-standard data security.
Blockchain
The future of blockchain lies in the creation of one connected network. Ping An has leading blockchain technology and the largest commercial blockchain network in the world.
- Leading technology: the most comprehensive Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) solution and <0.05 second response time.
- Ping An’s blockchain throughput is up to 50,000 Transactions Per Second (TPS).
- Largest commercial blockchain platform: with 40k nodes across 200 banks, 200,000 corporates, and 500 other entities.
- Ping An blockchain has been applied in multiple real life scenarios already, including HK eTradeConnect and OneConnects’s China supply china finance platform.
- Strong team: a group of technology, finance and IT experts with profound expertise.
Cloud
Ping An’s demand created by the growth of its business has been driving the development of Ping An Cloud. Transformation into Cloud took 5 years and currently 80% of systems (4,000 systems) are on cloud. Ping An Cloud is also fast expanding into the five ecosystems of the Group. To date, Ping An Cloud is the largest and most widely used financial cloud in China with 9 authoritative certifications and 400+ patent applications.
Cloud services has made rapid development in the past decade and many market observers assume the market place is already well served. Ping An sees potential for cloud to develop beyond traditional business lines in ecosystems where the cloud market place is relatively unpenetrated. Ping An Cloud will focus on the five ecosystems whose untapped market potential is 7x of the entire cloud market in 2018.
Ping An Cloud’s value proposition and advantages are:
- Security & compliance at the highest level financial cloud in China with 9 authoritative certifications.
- Stability & reliability, Ping An has 400+ patent applications of cloud core technologies; 98% end-to-end coverage.
- Industry know-how, users cover 100 financial institutions, 2,500 healthcare institutions; 10,000 auto dealers and 7 smart cities.
- Strong core team, top team all with 10+ years’ experience in IT and internet from Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Oracle and IBM.
Financial Services Ecosystem – OneConnect
Fintech helps financial institutions improve their return on equity and represents a promising market of US$40-50 billion in the region.
Ping An’s OneConnect is the largest financial services SaaS with integrated AI+ Financial Services capabilities in China. It possesses a unique business model of “business + technology” to empower financial institutions:
– World’s largest Fintech application in AI, Blockchain, & Biometric cognition, 1 bn+ facial and micro-expression usage / year.
– Strong combination of financial service DNA & cutting-edge technology, with 1000+ patents, 50+ products, and 2000+ APIs.
– 2,000+ staff with 46% R&D technical talents, all with rich experience.
– Leading financial services AI in China:
– 350+ AI researchers in OneConnect gamma lab.
– One Connect currently provides 50+ AI based solutions to help financial institutions address sales, product, risk management, service and operations pain points.
– Saved over US$45 billion (RMB 300 billion) in fraud detection and prevention, used by 3,000 financial institutions.
– Bank examples
– Customer Acquisition Case: The SAT solution helped 2 branches of a commercial bank to successfully reach out 10,000+ new customers and achieved a 25% customer conversion rate during their recent marketing campaigns for new credit products.
– Performance Improvement case: The SAT intelligence marketing solution successfully helped 22 branches of a city commercial bank to increase clients’ activities. The transaction volume of their payment schemes increased by 3 times within 1 month.
– Risk control case: AI+risk control solution helped to reduce the approval time from 1 week to real-time, and reduce 67% of credit losses.
– OneConnect is an internationally scalable business that has begun to extend its geographical footprint beyond China to tap a USD80bn – USD100bn Asian Fintech revenue pool opportunity
– Delivered “eTradeConnect”, Hong Kong’s first blockchain-powered trade finance platform
– 100+ people for Asia expansion in Singapore/Southeast Asia and HK/Taiwan
– JV with SBI in Japan
Healthcare Ecosystem – Ping An Good Doctor
Ping An Good Doctor is a leading force in the future internet healthcare services. It has huge potential globally given growing healthcare market and obvious pain points with massive monetization potential (>USD 100Bn). In China, healthcare market is expected to be RMB 1.6 trillion in 2026.
Ping An Good Doctor’s unique value propositions are AI-assisted medical capabilities (aided by 1000 in-house medical staff), one stop platform with comprehensive services, diversified monetization channels and synergistic support from Ping An Group:
- Dominant market player in a high growth potential market; Ping An’s 48.6 million MAU, exceeds the combined MAU of top 2-10 companies in internet healthcare industry
- 228 million registered users, 16 in 100 persons are PAGD’s registered users
- 531,000 daily average number of online consultations, equal to the amount of that in 250+ Grade III hospitals
- Ping An’s business is internationally scalable; Ping An recently established a 70/30 JV with Grab to penetrate SE Asia
Auto Services Ecosystem – Autohome
The auto ecosystem market in China has a market potential of US$1,200 billion with addressable market of US$365 billion in 2018. An AI-enabled platform, Autohome is the market leader connecting the largest online traffic in auto buyers, OEMs and dealers in China:
- Strong market performance, market cap increased 3.2 times after Ping An’s acquisition in 2016.
- Continuous revenue growth enabled by 5 business pillars and AI across media, leads, data, financing and transactions.
- Strong management team, all with 20+ years’ experience in strategy, internet, auto and financial services.
Leveraging AI, big data and cloud, Autohome offers value to partners in the auto ecosystem in terms of traffic, leads, content and data:
- To Consumers: Expand traffic coverage to entire life cycle; 35.5 million DAU which is #1 in the world in auto services
- AI: Global Leading AI technology + big data application in automotive industry (covering marketing, call center, transaction and financing).
- To Businesses: Improve sales through in-depth connecting industry, serving 100 OEMs, 26,000 auto dealers and 30,000 used car dealers.
Smart City Ecosystem – Ping An Smart City
Smart City solutions will unleash the full potential of cities. There are 500+ smart cities developing in China and the market for smart city solutions is expected to be US$2.6 billion.
Ping An Smart City is a front runner in China covering 60+ cities with 115 projects in progress:
- Most comprehensive solutions in the industry: It is the only player with comprehensive 1+N solutions deeply integrated with the city government on processes, management, services, and technology.
- Strong management team: All with 20+ years’ experience in government, technology, finance and other areas; leveraging other companies in the Group to work closely with the government.
Ping An “1+N” Smart City Platform is composed of 1 Smart City Cloud + N service modules including Smart Transportation, Smart Healthcare, Smart Government Administration, Smart Education, Smart Environment Protection and Smart Elderly Care etc.
- Smart Healthcare – #1 in disease prediction, # 1 in medical imaging, covering 3,000 hospitals in 15 provinces.
- Smart Government Administration: 700+ services live, saved 2+ hours per person, serving over 3 million business entities and improved efficiency by 50%
- Smart Transportation: AI+ Supervision, traffic violation recognition with 99% accuracy, 70% manual review workload reduced, minor accidents removal with 5 minutes
- Full empowerment through Smart Environment protection, Smart Education and Smart Elderly Care
For enquiries, please contact:
Gareth Hewett
+852 68822027
gareth.john@pingan.com.hk
SOURCE Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd.
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