AXA, Alibaba and Ant Financial Services announce global strategic partnership PARIS, 29 July 2016 - AXA, Alibaba and Ant Financial Services have agreed to engage in a global strategic partnership to jointly explore opportunities to distribute AXA's insurance products and services through Alibaba's global ecommerce ecosystem, benefitting the businesses and consumers that transact via Alibaba's marketplaces. The companies will seek to work together to co-innovate and to develop value-added products and services to customers around the world as well as to mutually support each other in developing and exploring new markets and segments.

The first phase of the proposed collaboration will focus on the following areas:

  • on AliExpress, a global retail marketplace targeted at consumers worldwide, AXA would develop and provide insurance products for AliExpress' global customers, such as extended warranties for repairs and/or damaged goods and enhanced online payment protection;

  • on Alibaba's wholesale marketplaces (Alibaba.com, 1688.com), AXA would provide insurance products to small and medium businesses from all over the world that are already trading on these platforms;

  • through Ant Financial Services (an Alibaba-affiliate which provides financial services), AXA would offer travel insurance products for Chinese travelers going overseas.

These insurance products and services would be developed by AXA's local entities according to the customers' local requirements.

"Forming partnerships with the most forward-thinking companies is part of our strategy to seize new business opportunities. This proposed collaboration with Alibaba could provide us with a unique global and direct distribution channel, and we are looking forward to serving Alibaba's customers and to developing bespoke and innovative insurance products and services for them. Thanks to Alibaba's unrivaled knowledge of its home market, this partnership will also help us further accelerate our development in China, where we already are the n.1 international insurer1", said Thomas Buberl, Deputy CEO of AXA2.

"Our collaboration with industry-leader AXA is a key part of Alibaba's globalization strategy and our vision to enable small businesses and consumers alike to enjoy the convenience and benefits of e- commerce in a safe trading environment," said Michael Evans, President, Alibaba Group. "As cross- border e-commerce grows rapidly, it is critical that we evolve our services and offerings to the businesses and consumers that conduct trade on our platforms. The collaboration between AXA and Alibaba will enable us to create new solutions and ultimately improve the overall customer experience."

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1 Source: CIRC statistics as of December 31, 2015, in terms of GWP.

2 Thomas Buberl will be CEO of AXA as of September 1, 2016.

About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group's mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. It is the largest retail commerce company in the world in terms of gross merchandise volume. Founded in 1999, the company provides the fundamental technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help merchants, brands and other businesses that provide products, services and digital content to leverage the power of the Internet to engage with their users and customers.

About Ant Financial Services Group

Ant Financial Services Group is focused on serving small and micro enterprises as well as consumers. With the vision "bring small and beautiful changes to the world," Ant Financial is dedicated to building an open ecosystem of Internet thinking and technologies while working with other financial institutions to support the future financial needs of society. Businesses operated by Ant Financial Services Group include Alipay, Ant Fortune, Ant Financial Cloud, Sesame Credit and MYbank.

Alibaba Group media contact:

Molly Morgan

+44 20 7395 8329

Mollymorgan@alibaba-inc.com

ABOUT THE AXA GROUP

The AXA Group is a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with 166,000 employees serving 103 million clients in 64 countries. In 2015, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 99.0 billion and IFRS underlying earnings to Euro 5.6 billion. AXA had Euro 1,363 billion assets under management as of December 31, 2015.

The AXA ordinary share is listed on compartment A of Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol CS (ISN FR 0000120628 - Bloomberg: CS FP - Reuters: AXAF.PA). AXA's American Depository Share is also quoted on the OTC QX platform under the ticker symbol AXAHY.

The AXA Group is included in the main international SRI indexes, such as Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and FTSE4GOOD.

It is a founding member of the UN Environment Programme's Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) Principles for Sustainable Insurance and a signatory of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.

This press release and the regulated information made public by AXA pursuant to article L. 451-1-2 of the French Monetary and Financial Code and articles 222-1 et seq. of the Autorité des marchés financiers' General Regulation are available on the AXA Group website (www.axa.com).

THIS PRESS RELEASE IS AVAILABLE ON THE AXA GROUP WEBSITE

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IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION AND CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS CONCERNING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements contained herein may be forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements that are predictions of or indicate future events, trends, plans or objectives. Undue reliance should not be placed on such statements because, by their nature, they are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and can be affected by other factors that could cause actual results and AXA's plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements. Please refer to the section "Cautionary statements" in page 2 of AXA's Document de Référence for the year ended December 31, 2015, for a description of certain important factors, risks and uncertainties that may affect AXA's business, and/or results of operations. AXA undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether to reflect new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise.

AXA SA published this content on 29 July 2016 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
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