HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, Feb. 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or "the Group", HKEx: 2318; SSE: 601318) is pleased to announce that three technology subsidiaries under the Group - Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited (hereafter "Ping An Good Doctor"), Ping An Medical and Healthcare Management Co., Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An Healthcare Technology") and OneConnect Financial Technology Co., LTD (hereafter "OneConnect") - have recently completed private placement financing.
Ping An Good Doctor is the world's largest healthcare portal in terms of traffic. Ping An Healthcare Technology is the largest technology-driven managed care platform in China. OneConnect is the only one-stop FinTech-empowered solutions provider in China. Financing of the three subsidiaries received positive responses, particularly from international institutional investors, including the SoftBank Vision Fund (which invested in Ping An Good Doctor and Ping An Healthcare Technology), International Digital Group (IDG) and SBI Group etc., proving that the capital market fully recognizes Ping An's technological innovation, the business model for its technology as well as the growth potential and business value of the Group.
The SoftBank Vision Fund invested in two of the three subsidiaries - it was the sole investor in the final pre-IPO round of financing of Ping An Good Doctor and was also a major investor in the A round financing of Ping An Healthcare Technology.
Kentaro Matsui, who led the investments by the SoftBank Vision Fund, said, "China is a dynamic and emerging economy with the largest HealthTech market worldwide, and the SoftBank Vision Fund sees tremendous growth potential for this sector. As one of China's foremost companies, Ping An is a leader in scaling emerging healthcare technologies within an integrated platform. We are tremendously excited about our investments in Ping An Good Doctor and Ping An Healthcare Technology and look forward to supporting their future expansion."
Ping An said, "The financing fully demonstrates global investors' recognition of the technological transformation strategy of Ping An, as well as their confidence in the competitive advantages of Ping An's HealthTech and FinTech in terms of data, technologies, talents and application scenarios. It will further enrich the Group's capital for the development of its technology business, optimizing its corporate governance structure, so as to capture the lucrative market opportunities to accelerate its business development. China's HealthTech and FinTech are booming and have huge market potential. The Group will continue to push forward with its two-pronged strategy of "Finance + Technology". By enhancing the technological capabilities of our core businesses, we are poised to complete our finance and healthcare business ecosystems so as to meet the comprehensive demands for financial services efficiently and precisely as it strives to become the world's leading FinTech company.
Ping An is at the forefront in terms of technology innovation. In the past 10 years, the Group not only used technologies to drive the development of its core businesses, but also achieved significant progress in developing these technologies as a service platform for third parties. At present, the Group has over 20,000 technological R&D staff members, over 500 big data scientists, over 3,000 international and national patent applications and many world-leading technologies in various areas of technological innovation. Under the guidance outlined in the new blueprint of its "Finance + Technology" strategy, Ping An uses 5 technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), big data, cloud platforms, block chain and biometrics, and applies these technologies in FinTech and HealthTech areas. While enhancing the competitiveness of traditional financial business by applying its technological achievements, Ping An also exports its leading technologies, and continuously incubates open Fintech and Healthtech platforms and ecosystems for the industries and society at large. A number of the Group's technological applications have also been exported to foreign countries.
At present, Ping An Good Doctor is the world's leading healthcare portal in terms of traffic, with over 190 million registered users and more than 30 million monthly active users. Ping An Healthcare Technology's business covers 800 million people across 70% of the cities in China. It provides comprehensive healthcare and business insurance management services such as expense control service, actuarial service, healthcare insurance account service, medical resources management and health profile application to over 250 cities. One Connect has provided more than 2,300 financial institutions (including over 420 banks) with one-stop FinTech solutions so far. Its institutional platform has recorded transactions of more than RMB12 trillion. It has successfully achieved leapfrog growth in different areas, including the volume of transactions, the number of cooperating institutions and the number of customers.
