China’s fintech giant Ant Financial launched a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) version of OceanBase, a distributed database that has served as key computing infrastructure for Alipay since 2010, according to a press release.
This SaaS product comes as Ant Financial is shifting its main focus to technology services and away from payments and consumer finance. The company, planned to gain 65% of revenue from technology services in five years, up from 37% in 2017, Reuters reported in June 2018.
OceanBase will provide a flexible and cost-effective option to small-and-medium enterprise customers and developers, enabling them to access all of OceanBase’s computing capabilities, said Ant Financial.
Citing the Transaction Processing Performance Council, a non-profit organization that defines transaction processing and database benchmarks, the company said OceanBase beat Oracle in October 2019 to be number one in terms of performance in its industry.
This article is part of KrASIA’s “China Brief” section, where KrASIA’s reporters will provide quick daily updates about the tech ecosystem in China.