Ping An Group’s Sci-tech Ambition
**“Speed” in Sci-tech Area**
In the field of science and technology, Ping An has taken “speed” to the extreme. Several figures in the 2019 annual report also illustrated this point. As of the end of December 2019, Ping An’s number of technology patent applications increased by 9,112 from the beginning of the year, reaching a total of 21,383, ranking it among the forefront of international financial institutions. In particular, the number of invention patent applications accounted for nearly 96%, and the cumulative number of PCT and overseas patent applications reached 4,845.
At the beginning of 2019, Ping An changed its original logo “Insurance·Bank·Investment” to “Finance + Technology”, and technology was more clearly defined as the core business that paralleled finance. “Finance + Technology” and “Finance + Ecology” have now become two words closely related to Ping An of China. While technology helps Ping An’s financial business improve service efficiency, risk control, and reduce operating costs, it will also be applied to the creation of five ecosystems of “financial services, medical and health care, auto services, real estate services, and smart cities”.
Through the comprehensive financial business model of “one customer, multiple products, one-stop service”, relying on localization advantages, Ping An implements international standard corporate governance and operation management, and will continue to promote the concept of “technology empowers finance, technology empowers ecology, and ecology empowers finance”.
When talking about the motivation for Ping An’s transformation, Chen Xinying, the co-CEO of Ping An Group, said: “At that time, we felt that technology might have a huge impact on the financial industry itself, and we also saw the rise of technology companies. So we decided to establish Ping An Technology, using technology to empower Ping An’s main business.” Since then, Ping An has invested 1% of its annual revenue in technological innovation each year, which will be a long-term planning.
“Technology empowers finance, technology empowers ecology, and ecology empowers finance” are precisely the three links of Ping An’s technological development. In the first link, technology empowers Ping An’s core business finance; in the second link, technology empowers ecosystems. The ecosystems mentioned here are that Ping An provides financial technology, medical technology, and smart cities to the entire market. In the third link, ecosystems empower Ping An’s financial business.
Obviously Ping An today’s technological achievements are not made overnight
**Technology empowers finance**
Growing from an insurance company into a giant, Ping An spent the first ten years in insurance, the second in comprehensive finance, and the third in finance + technology.
The total revenue of Ping An’s technology business in 2019 reached 82.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.1%. It can be seen that its strategy of “technology empowers finance and ecology” has achieved remarkable results. Speaking of Ping An’s future, Ma Mingzhe stated that in the new year, Ping An’s determination to actively research cutting-edge technology would not be changed, and Ping An would continue to promote technological innovation and firmly adopt intelligent and data-based operations.
**AI empowers major business – finance**
Ping An’s technology has developed rapidly, and its achievements have naturally been applied to the main business of finance. According to the recently released annual report, we can see that technology has enabled life insurance business to achieve remarkable results.
In terms of agent interviews, the coverage rate of AI interviews for agents reaches 100%. Big data technology could describe agents accurately and match personalized training. AskBob, an intelligent personal assistant dedicated to agents, has served 340 million people since its launch, helping improve agents’ conversion efficiency.
In terms of risk control, Ping An uses cutting-edge technology to empower analysis engines and improve the quality and efficiency of risk control. In particular, AI post-loan management covers 100% of non-overdue customers’ reminding, with per capita loan scale reaching 54 million yuan, an increase of 32% from the beginning of the year. Enterprise intelligent early warning system can dynamically monitor corporate credit risks, with more than 3000 early warnings throughout the year, reaching an accuracy rate of 92%. The amount of risk exposure involved is nearly 20 billion yuan.
In addition, Ping An Property Insurance uses leading AI image loss assessment technology and accurate customer profile technology to launch a “trust claim” service for car owners with good safe driving behaviors, providing trust credits to 45 million car owners. Technology has helped Ping An’s business to maintain excellent quality, achieving operating profit of 20.952 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 70.7%, and a comprehensive cost ratio of 96.4%.
**Technology empowers ecology**
Now that Ping An of China has entered its fourth ten years, in addition to its amazing technological development, another strategy of Ping An – Finance + Ecology is also being practiced in an orderly manner. The above mentioned that apart from financial services, Ping An’s five ecosystems also include healthcare, real estate, automobiles, and smart cities.
So why ecosystems? About this question, Chen Xinying replied that the biggest reason should be customer needs. Finance is only part of life, and finance itself has to be embedded into life scenes. The reason for choosing these five ecosystems is because they are very important to customers and the economy as a whole. They are all part of our lives.
**Medical ecosystem**
In fact, China’s current population aging is serious, and the number of doctors is far from enough. In order to increase the productivity of doctors, Ping An has developed AI intelligent aid diagnostic doctors. This “little assistant” has learned all medical textbooks and can read cases based on the experience of domestic clinicians, greatly improving the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment.
In addition, Ping An Health Cloud, as an online health consultation and management APP under Ping An, relying on its own medical team and self-developed AI-aided diagnosis and treatment system, covers 7×24 online consultation, health management, prescription, referral, making appointment, second diagnosis and treatment opinions, 1-hour delivery of medicines, and other full-process services.
As of December 31, 2019, Ping An Health Cloud has accumulated more than 315 million registered users. In December, the number of active users reached 66.9 million, making it China’s largest Internet medical and health service platform. During the pandemic, the number of new registered users of its APP increased by 10 times, and the average daily consultation volume of new users reached 9 times the usual.
In December 2019, Ping An Health Cloud established cooperation with Fuzhou Municipal Health Commission of Fujian Province, and would be responsible for construction and operation of the Fuzhou Internet Hospital Service Platform. The platform would include five modules: online diagnosis and treatment, prescription circulation, health management, data management and back end management. After its launch, it would serve local citizens, and the model could also be replicated and promoted to other parts of the country.
As a leading company in the industry, Ping An Health Cloud uses AI technology to empower government, and thereby to promote construction of China’s Internet medical industry.
**Car ecosystem**
As the second largest auto insurance company, Ping An has worked hard in the auto ecosystem.
In 2005, the Autohome under Ping An of China was established. As one of the most visited auto websites in the world, Autohome provides consumers with one-stop services such as car selection, car purchase, and car use.
As to why Autohome was established, Chen Xinying said that on the one hand, Ping An hoped to provide more comprehensive services. On the other hand, Autohome is not only an online information platform, but also needs to be integrated with offline business.
Therefore, in recent years, Ping An has made use of its own advantages and is committed to empowering the cloud platform of 4S stores and OEMs through technical data analysis. In 2019, more than 17,000 dealers purchased the data products of Autohome. This on the one hand deepens the user-side scenario, and on the other hand it brings offline participants closer together, which greatly promotes development of the automotive ecosystem.
In 2019, Autohome achieved operating income of 8.421 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.4%. In particular, online marketing business revenue was 1.491 billion yuan, accounting for 17.7%, and the proportion increased by 5.9% year-on-year. Net profit was 3.409 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.7%.
**Smart city ecosystem**
Compared with earlier domestic smart cities, Ping An’s strength lies in software. Therefore, Ping An pays more attention to how to use technology to help cities improve the efficiency of government management and how to provide residents with more convenient and efficient services.
In January 2019, Shenzhen’s unified government service app “iShenzhen”, built by Ping An Smart City, was officially launched. As the contractor, Ping An Smart City team organically combined Ping An’s leading blockchain technology with citizen services to provide citizens with a full range of government and life services such as government affairs services, transportation, medical and health care. It is intended to create a four-in-one mobile service platform for government, society, enterprises and citizens. Not only in Shenzhen, Ping An now provides smart city services to 115 cities, involving more than 200 projects.
Ping An now operates technology businesses through Lufax Holdings, OneConnect, Ping An Health Cloud, Ping An HealthKonnect, Autohome and other companies. As of December 31, 2019, OneConnect, Ping An Health Cloud and Autohome have been listed. Lufax Holdings and Ping An HealthKonnect have completed external financing. The total valuation of Ping An’s technology companies reached US$69.1 billion.
Ping An continues to explore new business models in the fields of finance and healthcare, and is committed to achieving the goals of feeding back the main financial business, empowering industry upgrades, and serving the real economy.
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