Alipay launches home rental service with benefits for "trustworthy" customers

Speakers: Li Ningjing, Sam Duckett and Lu Sirui

[Photo: from Chinadaily]

Ant Financial, the payment affiliate of Alibaba Group, has officially launched a home rental service, and people with good credit on Alipay may be eligible to rent an apartment deposit free, the firm said today.

Currently, more than one million apartments are available on Alipay, covering eight cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Xi'an and Zhengzhou.

People with good credit on Alipay may be exempted from paying a deposit, which is now the norm when it comes to home rentals.

Wang Bo, head of Ant Financial's innovation and smart services department, said deposit-free rentals are expected to be the mainstream in the future, with the help of new technologies that track people's trustworthiness automatically based on consumption manners.

The audio clip is from Studio+, produced by CRI.