Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has reportedly registered in Brazil a patent for its blockchain transaction system, called Ant Unicorn, the Coin Telegraph website reports.

The website quotes the latest edition of a Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property publication, Industrial Property Magazine, as saying Ant Unicorn will handle financial business, including insurance.

The report says that in registering its patent, Alibaba mentioned specifically real estate services, issuance of credit cards, invoice processing and payments, including the settlement of utility bills.

Ant Unicorn can handle lending, money transfers and foreign exchange, including trading in currencies, and can process transactions more securely than other systems, the Coin Telegraph website says.

In 2018 the Reuters news agency reported that the payments arm of Alibaba, Ant Financial, had invested US$100 million in shares sold in the initial public offering of a Brazilian card payment processing company, StoneCo Ltd.