Ant Financial sees blockchain as smart way forward for easy home rental contracts

It will soon be possible to rent a flat with a facial scan and pay automatically by locking the door when you leave, thanks to blockchain-enabled “smart contracts”, according to Ant Financial.

The financial affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is developing applications that, when combined with biometric recognition, will make the home rental experience “more convenient and efficient”, said Geoff Jiang, the company’s vice president and head of Ant Technologies Lab.

“Ant Financial is building a smart contract platform which can be applied to industries such as the industrial, finance and leasing markets,” Jiang told the South China Morning Post on the sidelines of the Alibaba Computing Conference in Hangzhou, where the company is based.

A “smart contract” is a self-executing agreement stored on blockchain, where the executions are triggered automatically when certain terms have been met. It is believed to be one of the most promising applications for business-related blockchain technology.

One of Alibaba’s initial projects included working with the Hangzhou Realty Administrative Bureau in developing a leasing regulation and service platform that came online last month, where property agents, tenants and landlords register using facial scan and all transactions are recorded to prevent fraud.

The interest in blockchain by the real estate industry coincides with the central government’s effort to boost the residential leasing market to counter endless price rises of homes in the country’s first and second-tier cities.