百度深耕银行业务

为开拓贷款业务，中国搜索引擎巨头百度正对金融科技初创公司进行更深入的投资。

本周一，百度宣布投资从事信用评分业务的美国金融科技公司ZestFinance，主要业务是利用机器学习和海量借贷者数据，评估借贷者偿还贷款的能力。

日本经济新闻社旗下刊物《日经亚洲周刊》本周三报道，上月百度还投资了一家经营比特币支付的初创公司Circle Internet Financial，但投资金额并未披露。

两项投资之前，去年百度决定与中信集团旗下中信银行联合成立百信银行。百度首席执行官李彦宏当时表示，百信银行将是中国首家“真正既懂互联网又懂金融服务”的银行。

去年，电商巨头阿里巴巴和开发出即时通讯产品微信的腾讯也成立了网上银行，一场客户争夺战就此拉开帷幕。接下来要看哪家新银行能迎合客户需要。

《日经亚洲周刊》报道称，百度还招募了多位金融业知名人士，包括美国运通、网络金融平台陆金所和中国光大银行的高管等。

虽然Lending Club等网上贷款平台在美国市场发展停滞不前，但中国的网络贷款市场增长强劲。日经新闻援引花旗集团的数据称，去年个人小额信用（P2P）贷款市场规模接近670亿美元。

百度将采用ZestFinance的信用排名技术评估客户信用。和美国不同，中国缺少集中管理的征信机构，而且持有信用卡的居民占少数。 （财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审校: 夏林

Chinese search giant Baidu is investing more deeply in financial technology startups as it seeks to expand its own lending efforts.

On Monday, Baidu announced an investment in ZestFinance, a startup taking on the credit scoring industry by using machine learning and a wide variety of data about borrowers to rate their ability to repay loans.

While the amount of the backing was not disclosed, Baidu also invested Bitcoin payments startup Circle Internet Financial last month, the Nikkei Asian Review reported on Wednesday.

Both investments followed Baidu’s decision last year to form an online bank in partnership with Citic Group’s banking unit. The new bank would be the first in China that “truly understands both the Internet and financial services,” Baidu CEO Robin Li said at the time.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and Tencent, owner of the WeChat messaging network, also started online banks last year, setting off a race to see which, if any, of the new institutions will catch on with consumers.

Baidu had also made several notable hires from the finance sector, the Nikkei paper reported, including executives with experience from American Express , online financial marketplace Lufax, and Everbright Bank in China.

While online lending sites like Lending Club have faltered in the United States, the market is strong in China. The peer-to-peer lending market reached almost $67 billion last year, the largest in the world, Nikkei reported citing data from Citigroup.

Baidu will use ZestFinance’s credit rating technology to assess the creditworthiness of its own users. Unlike the U.S., China lacks centralized credit bureaus, and only a small portion of the population has a credit card.