Ant Financial will use blockchain technology to track donations and similar fraudulent donations will be effectively curbed

Crazy Commentary : Ant Financial, as a subsidiary of the BAT giant Alibaba Group, combines blockchain technology with charity. With the help of the unique characteristics and advantages of blockchain, it makes public welfare more transparent, makes charity traceable, and ensures that every donation reaches the user safely. It can be seen that its layout of blockchain has a deep meaning. It is worth looking forward to what changes the BAT companies' layout of blockchain will bring in the future.

Author: Amber Dingding

On July 31, Cheng Li, Chief Technology Officer of Ant Financial, attended the 6th Shanghai New Finance Annual Conference and the 3rd Internet Finance Bund Summit, and announced that Ant Financial will try to apply blockchain technology to public welfare scenarios, and basically did not consider the application of blockchain in the payment field. At the same time, it was also revealed that it will cooperate with the China Social Relief Foundation (hereinafter referred to as "China Relief") to launch the blockchain public welfare fundraising project "Hearing-impaired Children Regain New Voice" on the Alipay Love Donation Platform, so that every donation can be tracked throughout the process. Ant Financial's layout of blockchain has been quietly underway, and there have been "clues" before. As a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, one of China's BAT giants, whether its movements indicate that BAT companies have also begun to study blockchain and use it for commercial purposes is worth paying attention to.

Hangzhou XIN Charity Conference revealed for the first time that blockchain technology will be applied to charity scenarios

On July 9, the first global XIN charity conference was held in Hangzhou. Ant Financial said it is actively exploring the use of blockchain technology to track the whereabouts of public donations. On the Alipay charity donation platform, users often donate from a few yuan to hundreds of yuan, and the donations cannot be tracked after entering the charity project account. Using blockchain technology, the life cycle of each payment is recorded on the blockchain, and users can continue to trace it.

Ant Financial engineers who attended the meeting said that the initial development of this system was just to use technology to solve a "small matter" of user experience. The technical staff patiently polished it, and although it was meaningful, there was no "benefit" to speak of.

At the conference, Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma said that the responsibility of public welfare is to awaken the kindness in everyone's heart. The public welfare mentality, combined with business methods, is the most effective way to get things done. Based on its own business model, it creates a public welfare platform that everyone can participate in and trust, and is willing to be a "patient capital" with affection and righteousness, actively working to eliminate the trust gap in society.

In June this year, Ant Financial President Jing Xiandong proposed the concept of "patient capital". He said that when fulfilling its social responsibilities, Ant Financial adheres to the principle of not rushing for success and not paying too much attention to immediate interests, and is willing to be a "patient capital" with affection and righteousness. According to information, Ant Financial is cooperating with the leading public welfare microfinance institution in China, and is preparing to promote the "Internet + Targeted Poverty Alleviation" model to more than 300 poor counties across the country within three years.

Ant Financial's new approach of "blockchain + charity"

This time, Ant Financial launched the blockchain charity project "Hearing-impaired Children Regain Their Voice" on the Alipay Love Donation Platform for the first time, which made many people understand for the first time what role the most popular blockchain technology can play in charity scenarios. The donations from this project will be used for the hearing and language rehabilitation expenses, deaf-health integrated education expenses and cochlear implant adjustment expenses of 10 children for one year, with a fundraising target of 198,400 yuan.

According to Cheng Li, Chief Technology Officer of Ant Financial, this model can be likened to an Internet post office that specializes in mailing donations. In the operation of the project, each donation is a package, and during the delivery process, it will be stamped at each mailing node, and each stamp can be publicly queried.

It is understood that the traditional donation method is that the public can choose to donate on their own, but they do not know exactly when the donation will be given to the recipient. When donating to a public welfare project supported by blockchain technology, after the project is completed, you can view the "love transfer record" and see the project donation situation and how the donations are allocated and distributed. On the Alipay charity donation platform, users often donate from a few yuan to hundreds of yuan, and the donations cannot be tracked after entering the public welfare project account. Using blockchain technology, the life cycle of each payment is recorded on the blockchain, and users can continue to trace it.

On the surface, blockchain charity projects are not much different, but the backend operations are different. Traditionally, donations enter the account of the charity project. After the project party confirms the execution, the staff uploads and enters the bills, disbursements, related pictures and situations. This model is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and consumable, and often leads to errors such as disbursement errors, such as the earlier Zhang Ziyi fraudulent donation incident, which was not disclosed until a long time ago. However, the intervention of blockchain will effectively improve this situation. After the donations enter the system, the entire life cycle will be recorded on the blockchain. There is no manual disbursement and other links, and the destination of each payment is difficult to change manually. The situation of "fraudulent donations" will be completely changed, and this is the charm of blockchain.

Cheng Li

Cheng Li, Chief Technology Officer of Ant Financial, said:

“Right now, we are just trying out a public welfare scenario. In the future, the blockchain public welfare scenario will be upgraded to include more public welfare organizations and auditing agencies to facilitate auditing and public and social supervision.”

Make blockchain truly a “machine of trust”.