“This talk will first try to disentangle elements surrounding “social credit” a conflated concept and discuss its varied meanings in different social contexts. It then presents the case of Alibaba’s Ant Financial, its Alipay, Sesame Credit system and MyBank –internet bank. This integrated system based on big data in their digital cloud has been successfully offering financial support to tens of millions of Chinese Small and Microenterprises. Ant Financial’s operation opens up the questions many may have about the governance of data, such as Information Transparency, Security, Individual choices, Punishments and rewards as tools to build a benevolent society.”

Xiaobai is Senior Lecturer in International and Chinese Business, and a visiting Professor in Peking University Law School; she has also held a visiting position in Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. She is associate editor of the Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management. Xiaobai is working on intellectual property (IP) regimes in China. In general, her research is on the social analysis of technology (products/services), their markets, and embedding broader context. She specialises in the areas of telecommunications, information and computing sectors, in particular focusing on issues concerning emerging markets.