HANGZHOU - Alipay announced Wednesday that it will provide small and micro enterprise (SME) owners with digital tools that are free of charge, helping them save at least 50 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) in operating expenses over the next three years.

According to Ni Xingjun, president of the Alipay Business Group at Ant Financial, SME owners need to embrace technological transformation to capture the opportunities brought by the digital economy. "In the next three years, we will help SME owners in China embrace digitalized operations so that they can avoid being left behind in the digital era," Ni said.

MYbank, an online bank under Ant Financial, will also help SME owners reduce their operating costs. In 2017 and 2018, the interest rate paid on SME loans provided by MYbank has been reduced by 1 and 1.2 percent respectively, and the rate will be reduced further in 2019.

In addition, MYbank has announced a plan to increase credit to SME owners by 10 billion yuan this year.