為開拓貸款業務，中國搜索引擎巨頭百度正對金融科技初創公司進行更深入的投資。

本周一，百度宣布投資從事信用評分業務的美國金融科技公司ZestFinance，主要業務是利用機器學習和海量借貸者數據，評估借貸者償還貸款的能力。

日本經濟新聞社旗下刊物《日經亞洲周刊》本周三報道，上月百度還投資了一家經營比特幣支付的初創公司Circle Internet Financial，但投資金額并未披露。

兩項投資之前，去年百度決定與中信集團旗下中信銀行聯合成立百信銀行。百度首席執行官李彥宏當時表示，百信銀行將是中國首家“真正既懂互聯網又懂金融服務”的銀行。

去年，電商巨頭阿里巴巴和開發出即時通訊產品微信的騰訊也成立了網上銀行，一場客戶爭奪戰就此拉開帷幕。接下來要看哪家新銀行能迎合客戶需要。

《日經亞洲周刊》報道稱，百度還招募了多位金融業知名人士，包括美國運通、網絡金融平臺陸金所和中國光大銀行的高管等。

雖然Lending Club等網上貸款平臺在美國市場發展停滯不前，但中國的網絡貸款市場增長強勁。日經新聞援引花旗集團的數據稱，去年個人小額信用（P2P）貸款市場規模接近670億美元。

百度將采用ZestFinance的信用排名技術評估客戶信用。和美國不同，中國缺少集中管理的征信機構，而且持有信用卡的居民占少數。 （財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

審校: 夏林

Chinese search giant Baidu is investing more deeply in financial technology startups as it seeks to expand its own lending efforts.

On Monday, Baidu announced an investment in ZestFinance, a startup taking on the credit scoring industry by using machine learning and a wide variety of data about borrowers to rate their ability to repay loans.

While the amount of the backing was not disclosed, Baidu also invested Bitcoin payments startup Circle Internet Financial last month, the Nikkei Asian Review?reported on Wednesday.

Both investments followed Baidu’s decision last year to form an online bank in partnership with Citic Group’s banking unit. The new bank would be the first in China that “truly understands both the Internet and financial services,” Baidu CEO Robin Li said at the time.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and Tencent, owner of the WeChat messaging network, also started online banks last year, setting off a race to see which, if any, of the new institutions will catch on with consumers.

Baidu had also made several notable hires from the finance sector, the Nikkei paper reported, including executives with experience from American Express , online financial marketplace Lufax, and Everbright Bank in China.

While online lending sites like Lending Club have faltered in the United States, the market is strong in China. The peer-to-peer lending market reached almost $67 billion last year, the largest in the world, Nikkei reported citing data from Citigroup.

Baidu will use ZestFinance’s credit rating technology to assess the creditworthiness of its own users. Unlike the U.S., China lacks centralized credit bureaus, and only a small portion of the population has a credit card.