Blockchain Focused Subsidiary of China’s Ping An Insurance Files For IPO

OneConnect Financial Technology, a financial subsidiary of China’s biggest insurance firm Ping An Insurance and backed by SoftBank, has filed an application for an initial public offering (IPO) with the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission).

The firm is planning for a Nasdaq listing. The application filed with the SEC revealed that the company aims to raise $100 million or more through the sale of shares.

Back in September, the company began to plan for a New York listing after it was unable to succeed in getting itself listed in Hong Kong with a better valuation. The company hoped to generate $1 billion via the IPO with a valuation of $8 billion.

The IPO’s underwriters are Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, HSBC and others. The enterprise is a division of Ping An Insurance and straightaway supported by Japanese private equity behemoth SoftBank, which resulted in a Series A funding round assessing OneConnect at $7.50 billion in 2018, as per Ping An’s 2018 annual report.

With 274 filings, by the end of first-half of 2019, Ping An stands second with regard to blockchain patents in China. OneConnect, in its annual report, has stated that it will set aside 1% of its yearly revenue for blockchain development.

OneConnect has eight committed research institutes and 50 tech labs working on blockchain ventures across financial services sectors. Its FiMax blockchain network is stated to enhance information-sharing and privacy procedures as per a OneConnect white paper.

The white paper elaborated on both prevailing and future ventures across trade funding, securitization of assets and supply-chain funding, and also 14 other applications in sectors ranging from healthcare, smart city management and real estate.

OneConnect became the first member of the R3 enterprise blockchain consortium in 2016 while studying some of its apps with the Hyperledger powered technical framework.

Blockchain, big data, cloud services and artificial intelligence are four key business lines of the company as per OneConnect’s website. Two of its ventures were enrolled in the recent blockchain project list submitted to the China Cyberspace Administration in October. They are data analytics platform and a blockchain powered voting and decision making system.

As per 2018 annual report, OneConnect has associated itself with over 200 Chinese banks, 500 government and commercial institutions, and 200,000 enterprises.