Ant Financial chairman and CEO Eric Jing said that Alipay and its local e-wallet providers served 1.2 billion customers around the world in June 2019, a 20% jump from the six-month period ended in December 2018, according to a presentation he made to investors. 

Alipay itself had more than 900 million annual active users in China by the end of June. The company said that eight out of 10 users were using at least three of the company's finance-related services, including payment, wealth management, micro financing, insurance and credit services. 

Ant Financial has been sharing its technology in several areas, including blockchain, IoT, artificial intelligence, security and computing with other companies. For example, insurance firms have been using the company's blockchain technology to validate the authenticity of medical invoices, thereby slashing claims processing costs from $14 (RMB 100) to just 14 cents (one yuan) and reducing reimbursement time from days to minutes. 

The company has also developed a blockchain-as-a-service platform. 

Cover image courtesy of Alipay.