Business
20:08, 28-Aug-2018
SoftBank, ZhongAn $200mln joint venture to deliver new technology
Updated
19:06, 31-Aug-2018
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Japan's SoftBank has announced a joint venture with Chinese insurance giant ZhongAn Online Insurance, with both sides partnering up to deliver the latest technology to some of the world's biggest companies.
ZhongAn's Chief Financial Officer Francis Tang told media on Monday that 51 percent of the joint venture would be under SoftBank's Vision Fund, a 100 billion-US dollar investment fund that has backed companies from Didi Chuxing to Alibaba.
The remaining 49 percent minority stake would be under ZhongAn, with both parties each putting around 100 million US dollars into the joint venture.
According to the Financial Times, the joint venture will see ZhongAn's technology incorporated into companies that are part of the Vision Fund or SoftBank's other investments, such as Uber, WeWork and India's mobile payments platform Paytm.
ZhongAn has invested heavily into developing innovative technology in areas such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. Reuters reports that the joint venture will initially focus on the financial and healthcare sectors in the Asia-Pacific region.
Read more: Insurance and China's fintech sector
Details of the joint venture were announced after ZhongAn published its latest financial data on Monday.
The online insurance company, which was established in 2013 by Ant Financial, Tencent and Ping An Insurance, recorded losses of 655.8 million yuan (95.4 million US dollars) in the first half of 2018.
The losses came despite total premium income increasing by 106.6 percent to more than 5.14 billion yuan (755.5 million US dollars).
According to ZhongAn's data, more than 300 million people in China have bought insurance products from the company.
Earlier this year, the company announced that it lost 996 million yuan (157 million US dollars) in 2017. In March, Tang told China Daily the losses were "well expected" and were largely blamed on an increase in unearned premium reserves, as well as the company's huge investment into "bolstering its high-growth trajectory."