Two wholly-owned subsidiaries of Ali Small & Micro Financial Service Group under Alibaba - Chongqing Ali Small & Micro Financing Guarantee Company (also known as Ali Small & Micro Guarantee) and Chongqing Ali Small & Micro Petty Loan Company (Ali Small & Micro Petty Loan) - located in Liangjiang New Area (LNA) in 2013, and the move attests to the successful cooperation between LNA and Alibaba Group in the finance sector – and thus adds weight for LNA to create a core zone of the financial center in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

Alibaba.com China had 8.5 million supplier storefronts at the end of 2012, and Alibaba.com International has more than 2.8 million supplier storefronts, with a total of over 500 million registered users - making it one of the world’s 20 most popular websites.

Ali Small & Micro Financial Service Group collaborated with LNA to establish Ali Small & Micro Guarantee and Ali Small & Micro Petty Loan in LNA through financial innovation, with the aim of improving services for small and medium-sized enterprises in e-commerce.

Ali Small & Micro Guarantee introduces a new mode of financing guarantee – network guarantee, which serves disadvantaged members on its e-commence platform, such as micro and small-sized enterprises, individual entrepreneurs and online consumers, by offering businesses including network loan guarantees, trade financing guarantees, property preservation guarantees and performance guarantees, and by providing intermediary services related to business guarantees, like financing consultation and financial consultancy services.

The establishment of Ali Small & Micro Petty Loan will push forward Alibaba’s innovative petty loan business – online micro loans - to benefit a larger number of small & micro e-entrepreneurs and online consumers.

Alibaba Group was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma - the pioneer of China’s Internet - and is committed to providing people around the world with convenient Internet-based transaction channels.

The privately-held group has developed its focus to include business-to-business trade, retail, online payment and enterprise management software, and it serves Internet users in over 240 countries and regions, employs more than 17,000 people in more than 50 cities - in China, Japan, Korea, the UK and the US - and has approximately 50 million small and medium-sized company customers and 300 million Taobao users.

The year 2013 was a turning point for Alibaba Group and, in March, it officially announced its intention to establish Ali Small & Micro Financing Service Group - covering payment, micro loans, guarantees, insurance, financial management and other core businesses - and it is divided into four business units: domestic, overseas, innovation and sharing business units.

Ali Small & Micro Financing Service Group integrated the Alipay business – which was originally independent from Alibaba Group and which achieved transactions in 2012 exceeding 2,000 billion yuan- and Ali Finance (formerly a financing business unit within Alibaba Group).

Alipay was divided into two units - domestic business and overseas business – and Ali Finance became an innovative financing business unit, covering credit, financial management, insurance and other new businesses, in addition to the existing Ali petty loan and e-mall guarantees, and all background supporting businesses were integrated to form a business unit of sharing platform.

http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/alibaba-ipo/4658