OneConnect sold software to the rivals of its own biggest shareholder. The company began inside Ping An, the Chinese insurance and banking giant, as the group's fintech arm. It then packaged Ping An's systems for smaller banks and insurers across China. In December 2019 Chinese tech companies still listed in New York often, and fintech was a crowded field. OneConnect still had to cut its price and its size to get the deal done.

Born Inside Ping An

OneConnect was founded in 2015 and is based in Shenzhen. It ran as a separate company within Ping An Group until November 2017, when Ping An stopped consolidating it. Ping An stayed a partner and its flagship customer. The bet was that thousands of Chinese financial firms could not build modern technology on their own. OneConnect offered them a core banking system, cloud platforms and other tools as a service.

A Flat Debut

OneConnect first aimed to sell 36 million shares at $12 to $14 each. It settled for 31.2 million American depositary shares at $10, the top of a reduced range, and raised $312 million. The shares opened on the NYSE on December 13, 2019, and closed the first day at $10, unchanged. A Ping An subsidiary later offered to buy out the other shareholders. The deal closed in late 2025, and OneConnect left both the New York and Hong Kong exchanges.

Cover: The White Bridge, John Henry Twachtman. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a bridge (connecting banks to technology).