Alibaba Financial, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, is expanding its financing program for small businesses to China’s Guangdong Province.
Starting at the end of February, small and micro “Ali-Credit Loans” will be available to Guangdong companies that pay membership fees to market their products through the group’s Alibaba.com website.
Alibaba.com, which helps manufacturers and suppliers sell to other businesses both in China and internationally, has more than 10 million registered users in Guangdong, of which nearly 300,000 are paying members.
Through the program, companies can borrow up to RMB 3 million ($479,000) without having to put up any collateral. Banks participating in the Ali-Credit program assess creditworthiness based on sales and other data supplied by Alibaba.com.
Alibaba Financial, formerly known as Ali-Finance, has been offering micro-lending services to small e-commerce companies in China for more than two years. The programwas launched to help provide financing options for fledgling e-commercecompanies, which in China find it nearly impossible to obtain conventional business loans.
More than 200,000 companies have received Alibaba Financial loans to date. Most of themare located in Shanghai and Zhejiang Province, where Alibaba Group is headquartered. But this is not the first time Alibaba Financial has operated in Guangdong, a powerhouse manufacturing center in southern China sometimes referred to as the “workshop of the world.” As of the end of 2012, more than 40,000 e-commerce retailers located in the province and selling goods in Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace and Tmall shopping websites had secured financing through Alibaba Financial.
In July, Alibaba Financial extended lending services to non-paying Alibaba.com members in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Company spokesman Wang Tong said it had not yet been decided whether non-paying Alibaba.com members in Guangdong would likewise become eligible for loans.
But the company is planning to expand the Ali-Credit program to midwest China and the Bohai Sea area, thus reaching parts of the country with the highest concentrations of small businesses, Wang said.
