Jack Ma uses blockchain to promote charity, and Ant Financial further expands the scope of its projects

Alibaba’s payments subsidiary, Ant Financial, is expanding the scope of its own blockchain-based charity projects.

The project, initiated by Ant Financial’s philanthropic arm and called Ant Love, was first announced in the summer of 2016. At the time, the company said it was exploring the technology to “bring more transparency” to philanthropy. Specifically, the blockchain platform is designed to provide greater visibility into donation histories, philanthropic disclosures, and other relevant types of information.

Ant Financial CTO Cheng Li told Bloomberg at the time:

“We want to bring greater transparency to charity, and the decentralized nature of blockchain is well suited to this intention. This means that all information and transaction history of charity funds will be more reliable and cannot be easily changed.”

Now, Ant Financial is said to be looking to expand the project further.

According to the South China Morning Post, Ant Financial is planning to bring more companies onto the platform, including donation organizations, charities and media groups.

The project is noteworthy, especially given the reach of Alipay, which surpassed 450 million users last year, and the global footprint of Alibaba itself.

Earlier this month, Alibaba announced that it was working with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the “Big Four Auditing Firms,” to develop a blockchain project to prevent fraud in the food supply chain.