Alibaba pairs with US lending firm to attract overseas business
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has launched a charm offensive to attract US businesses to its trading platform, having partnered with San Francisco-based Lending Club.
The multi-year partnership will mean US-based businesses can apply for a line of credit between from $5,000 and $300,000 from Lending Club to pay for items from China-based suppliers on Alibaba’s platform.
Under a product called “Alibaba.com e-Credit Line powered by Lending Club,” US-based business buyers can apply for the short-term loans when purchasing goods on fixed monthly interest rates of between 0.5 per cent and 2.4 per cent.
“Our mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere,” said Michael Lee, Alibaba.com’s global marketing and business development director in a statement. “We want to make financing as efficient as possible for the millions of US buyers that do business through Alibaba.com and are pleased to bring Lending Club’s simple, low cost and transparent financing products to our US buyers.”
Meanwhile Lending Club’s founder and chief executive Renaud Laplanche said that it shares Alibaba’s commitment to enabling “frictionless global ecommerce” by US small businesses.
“We believe that access to affordable credit through Alibaba.com and the Lending Club platform can become a competitive advantage for small businesses across America,” he added.
Alibaba has previously been heralded as one of the biggest threats to western-based businesses, by the likes of WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell. He has repeatedly warned businesses “not to underestimate the Chinese”, particularly Alibaba, when it comes to their global influence.
Alibaba.com, a platform for global wholesale trade serving millions of buyers and suppliers, went public in September 2014. The Chinese e-commerce giant has a market cap of 224 billion. Sellers on Alibaba.com are typically based in China and other manufacturing countries including India, the US, Pakistan, and Thailand.
Lending Club, whose technology platform enables it to deliver innovative solutions to borrowers and investors, went public last December and currently has a market cap of nearly 7 billion.