Ant Financial's Sesame Credit rating service.
Foreign commentary often confuses Sesame Credit -- a voluntary credit-rating service for users of e-commerce giant Alibaba -- with the social credit systems the government has established to punish illegal and anti-social behaviour. However, the two systems function in different ways, have different objectives and use different data.
Foreign firms in China can benefit from using Sesame Credit to assess trustworthiness and creditworthiness, or for identity brokerage.
Far from developing into an ever more all-embracing and ubiquitous system, Sesame Credit’s growth has probably plateaued.
Controversies around data privacy and the non-disclosure of Sesame Credit’s algorithms indicate that Chinese users care about these issues.
