Once upon a time, Ant Group was just a humble little fintech startup, born as a payment solution for Alibaba.

It was the quiet kid in the corner, handling transactions for e-commerce buyers too busy to notice the revolution brewing behind the checkout button.

Skip ahead twenty years… 

Ant shed its underdog image.

Until it ran afoul of Chinese regulators, it was the apex predator, clawing at the gates of global fintech with a hunger for total dominance.

In all, it served over 1.3 billion users and 80 million merchants.

(Meanwhile, for perspective, JPMorgan Chase serves about 66 million U.S. households.)

How did it get there?

Not (entirely) with brute force, but with something far more powerful: hyperautomation.

The Rise of the Financial Superapp

Robb Wilson, author of Age of the Invisible Machines, defines hyperautomation as: the smart use of AI and automation tools to create a system where people, machines, and processes work seamlessly together.

One of his case studies is Ant Group.

Early on, the company recognized that many traditional processes were too slow and labor-intensive to support its ambitious growth.

By automating these tasks, Ant freed up resources and sped up its operations exponentially.

AI-powered chatbots handled most customer inquiries, offering quick and accurate answers without needing human intervention.

Intelligent algorithms constantly monitored systems for potential issues, solving problems before they even surfaced.

They also streamlined payment settlements, tracked and complied with regulatory requirements, and automated the process of onboarding new merchants.

The company even used sophisticated AI systems to tackle more complex challenges, like improving cross-border payments for small businesses.

As summed up by Harvard Business Review:

“There are no workers in [Ant’s] ‘critical path’ of operating activities. AI runs the show. There is no manager approving loans, no employee providing financial advice, no representative authorizing consumer medical expenses. And without the operating constraints that limit traditional firms, Ant Group can compete in unprecedented ways and achieve unbridled growth and impact across a variety of industries.”

This not only allowed Ant to do more with less…

It allowed it to gobble up other fintech companies and integrate them into its app at breakneck speed.

- WorldFirst in the UK for $700M.

- Multifly in Europe for $200M.

- A biometric authentication company in the U.S.

And when the U.S. said "Not on our turf" and blocked their $1.2B bid for MoneyGram? Ant shrugged, said "fine," and went shopping elsewhere: India, Southeast Asia, even Africa.

Quickly, Ant became an all-in-one financial superapp.

Need to transfer money? Great. How about a loan? Insurance? Investment advice tailored to your spending habits? It’s all right there, a one-stop shop.

By bundling everything together, Ant didn’t just make life easier for customers. It’s also collecting a treasure trove of data on user behavior.

By analyzing user data, Ant can deliver highly personalized services that feel tailor-made for each individual.

It was the all-in-one bank of the future… until, of course, Chinese regulators pulled its fangs.

But, rather than being a cautionary Icarus-like tale, Ant is serving as a blueprint for what’s coming in the West.

Compare it to the West

The competition in the West paints a different picture.

Instead of a cohesive juggernaut like Ant (or WeChat or GRAB Holdings for that matter), Western fintech is a fragmented battleground, with each player excelling in a specific niche… 

But rarely offering the seamless, all-encompassing experience of a financial superapp.

PayPal dominates online payments, Stripe powers e-commerce infrastructure, Robinhood attracts retail investors, and Square caters to small businesses.

Yes, Chime, Revolut, and N26 are building digital-only banks that kind of look like Alipay Lite.

But they're nowhere near the scale and reach of Ant.

To be sure, this fragmentation is both a strength and a weakness.

It fosters innovation by encouraging specialization but also leaves the door open for a contender to stitch the pieces together into a unified experience.

And now, that contender is emerging.

Quietly, yet unmistakably, the groundwork is being laid for something unprecedented in America.

It’s not another legacy bank scrambling to modernize, nor a scrappy startup chasing niche markets.

This contender has the ambition to become an all-in-one financial superapp… and the resources to make it happen.

You guessed it: it’s Elon Musk.

For investors, the time to get the full picture is right now… before things kick off later this year.

More on that (and what he’s planning for 2025) tomorrow.