Ping An Insurance (Group) Co of China Ltd may float its Internet financial units, such as the capital, payment and medical service trading platforms, if they register sound performance, the group said as it announced its 2014 business results on Friday.

Ren Huichuan, general manager of Ping An, said the group's Internet finance business is growing fast. As a growing number of the companies' traditional users are switching to Internet-based service platforms, these Internet-based subsidiaries hold a promising future.

Ping An does not rule out the possibility that they may go public at the right time.

According to the performance report, Ping An had 137 million Internet users with nearly 70 million active users and 19.7 million users of its mobile applications last year.

It has been reported that a number of peer-to-peer (P2P) financing platforms, where the majority of lenders and borrowers are consumers or small businesses, are planning an initial public offering (IPO) with the encouragement of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Lufux, the Internet capital trading platform under Ping An, has seen the number of its registered users increase by 20-fold in the past two years to more than 5 million. At the same time, the volume of its capital trading has surged seven-fold.

Lufux said recently it would raise its registered capital from 800 million yuan ($128.8 million) to 3 billion yuan. PPmoney, another major P2P company, has also issued a new funding plan of about 1.5 billion yuan. Experts have interpreted these P2P companies' sudden stronger financing volume as a prelude to IPOs.

"As long as these Internet financial subsidiaries are in the interest of stakeholders and the group, we'll keep an open mind for them to go public," Ren said.

He said Lufux is an information platform for financial capital trading, and is neither a creditor nor an investor. "Lufux is not a 100-percent P2P platform. It will grow into an open platform for various financial products. It is still in an exploration stage full of uncertainties. But one thing is for sure, which is that it has strong financial DNA, led by an excellent management team with an outstanding financial background."

Wanlitong.com, an online Ping An platform dedicated to converting credit-card credits into money, has seen its credit-turned purchasing power rise to 4.6 billion yuan by the end of last year - from 1.2 billion yuan during the same period in 2013.

Pahaoche.com, an online automobile service platform, offered more than 50 million yuan worth of automobile-related loans in 2014. Yizhangtong, the online payment tool developed by Ping An, manages nearly 500 billion yuan in assets for more than 40 million registered users. Other Internet-based subsidiaries of the insurance Group cover sectors like medical services and real estate.

Ma Mingzhe, Ping An's chairman and chief executive officer, said the group's Internet service is based on trading. In future, the focus will be on raising the volume and frequency of trading online. Ping An will first solidify the quality of its services before stepping up marketing efforts so that the frequency of trading will eventually transform into real value.

yangziman@chinadaily.com.cn

As more traditional customers shift to online service platforms, Internet-based insurance companies or units are drawing investors' attention. Provided to China Daily

(HK Edition 03/21/2015 page8)