JD.com, China’s largest retailer, leading Chinese fintech company JD Finance, Thailand’s largest retail conglomerate Central Group, and Provident Capital today announced an aggregate investment of up to $500 million to establish two joint ventures in Thailand covering e-commerce and fintech services, respectively.
Under the terms of the agreement, half of the investment will come from Central Group, with the remainder coming from JD.com, JD Finance and Provident Capital, which is also JD.com’s strategic partner for its Indonesian e-commerce business.
JD.com will provide its extensive expertise in technology, e-commerce and logistics to the e-commerce joint venture. Meanwhile, the fintech services joint venture will benefit from JD Finance’s deep knowledge in the financial technology sector, including its experience building out easy-to-use fintech services in developing markets using its artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other industry-leading technology capabilities. Across both businesses, Central Group will leverage its immense retail resources, including its physical store network, which will serve as key omni-channel and payment locations, its wealth of brand and merchant relationships, as well as its retail behavior insights from its hugely popular customer loyalty program, “The 1 Card.” To strengthen the product offering, and to accelerate its own omni-channel growth, Central Group will open multiple flagship stores on the e-commerce platform for its department stores and key retail chains, as well as for select brands owned or operated by Central Group.