China’s central bank yesterday issued a notice allowing eight Chinese private organizations, including Alibaba’s Sesame and Tencent, to prepare for the launch of their consumer credit rating services over a six-month period. It’s no secret that Ant Financial Services Group, Alibaba’s finance arm, has been developing Sesame, a credit scoring service based on user profiles and the behavioural data Alibaba’s marketplaces have collected. Alipay, the online payment service under Ant Financial, has had more than 300 million users. Currently only the Chinese central bank, state ministries and local governments keep track of consumer credit records, but their data are not open to the public. Both Alibaba and Tencent, in related moves, are building private banks.