Chinese financial technology firm Ant Financial declared on Friday that its OpenChain distributed ledger blockchain platform is now accessible to small business developers to assist with the development of distributed apps.

Ant Financial, previously identified as Alipay, is the financial technology arm of Chinese multinational e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and is expected to be the highest-valued fintech company in the world. The company has examined payment and logistics solutions utilizing blockchain technology, including cross-border payments.

The Ant Financial Blockchain flaunts the largest productivity blockchain in China and the platform processes and maintains over one billion user accounts and one billion transactions per day. The OpenChain platform started as a proprietary solution developed and launched internally to Ant Financial and now is commonly available.

“Applications of blockchain technology have ballooned over the past few years,” stated Jin Ge, general manager of blockchain platforms at Ant Financial in a statement. “Through the launch of the OpenChain platform, we aim to help one million small and micro enterprises and developers innovate and explore more use cases in the next three years.”

OpenChain comprises dozens of easy-to-use modules intended to provide multiple networking parties for collaborative solutions and use cases like digital invoices, supply chain finance, product provenance, and charitable donations.

Blockchain technology utilizes distributed cryptographic ledgers to collect transaction data in a form that’s highly tamper-resistant and provides every node in the network to observe the state of the network at any time. That involves blockchain technology that can be used to allow multiple parties to trust the ledger without the requirement for a central authority, thus providing for individual authentication of data.

Ant Financials’ OpenChain also applies trusted computing capabilities to improve data security and privacy for apps operating on its platform.

Apps produced for OpenChain utilize the blockchain and programmable smart contracts to collect data and distribute computation. Decentralized apps, or Dapps, do not need centralized servers and run distributed over the whole blockchain network. As a consequence, every participant in the network promotes the execution and security of the app; every participant also has an entrance to the same data and can open or limit visibility into the details while also being sure that the data is secure.

Utilizing a modular design, OpenChain also enables developers to create an app from off-the-shelf components quickly. This indicates a basic app can be produced and launched in a short time with the opportunity to update later as the business grows.

“The platform offers efficient blockchain development services, facilitates cost-effective smart contracts, and lowers the entry barrier for developers,” said Wu Xiao, founder, and chief executive of WhiteMatrix, in a statement, a provider of individual developer services and enterprise blockchain app development. “Not only are OpenChain’s transaction speeds several times faster than public blockchain platforms like Ethereum, but the cost per transaction is only one-tenth of others.” The platform will cost $14 per month for small business and developer associates signing onto the service.