File photo/Liu Chunshan (NBD)

Jan. 8 (NBD) – Stock of Yusys Technologies Co Ltd (300674.SZ), one of the largest providers of banking IT solutions in China, soared by the daily limit of 10 percent for consecutive two days, after the company announced on Tuesday morning that it has secured strategic investments worth nearly 600 million yuan (86.4 million U.S. dollars) from Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU).

On Wednesday, shares of the fintech firm closed at 33.43 yuan each.

Upon completion of the deal, Baidu will hold a 5.71 percent stake in Yusys Technologies. The two sides have also entered into an agreement to cooperate in financial cloud services, big data, artificial intelligence, block chain, etc., and jointly promote the cloud technology and AI to be applied in the financial sector.

Founded in 1999, Yusys Technologies mainly engages in providing bank-oriented financial institutions with information services, such as consulting, software products, software development and implementation, operation and maintenance, and system integration.

National Business Daily (NBD) noticed that in 2007, Yusys Technologies became the first IT services provider to list on Nasdaq, but the firm finally chose to go private in 2012 when China concept stocks were underrated because of short-selling "attacks". In October 2018, the company debuted on China's Nasdaq-like board ChiNext.

From the perspective of Baidu, the tech giant is seeking further expansion in the fintech domain through the tie up with Yusys Technologies. 

Before, Baidu had already made deployment in financial businesses including banking, third-party payment, fund sales, insurance, etc. In 2019, Baidu's cloud business Baidu AI Cloud teamed up with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co Ltd to introduce the first digital employee in China's financial sector and released several fintech products and solutions as well.

NBD observed that the fintech industry is now full of competitors. Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei respectively launched their cloud computing business to expand in the financial cloud services segment. Following them, JD.com and NetEase also unveiled their financial units to grab a slice of the fintech market.

As China's central bank published a development plan for the fintech sector last August, the industry is expected to embrace faster growth. According to research institute Analysys, China's fintech market exceeded 115 trillion yuan in 2018 and is predicated to reach over 157 trillion yuan in 2020.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn