China's Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China Ltd. hired banks to prepare for an IPO of its OneConnect financial management portal on the Hong Kong stock exchange, Bloomberg News reported March 28, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

An IPO of OneConnect Financial Technology Co. Ltd. could raise up to US$3 billion as soon as September, according to Bloomberg. Ping An, China's largest insurer by market value, picked banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and CCB International Holdings Ltd. to work on the planned IPO.

The report came after OneConnect closed a US$650 million funding round earlier in 2017 that valued it at US$7.4 billion. In addition to OneConnect, two other tech units of Ping An raised a total of US$1.55 billion in separate funding rounds earlier this year.

Representatives for Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan declined to comment, while a representative for CCB International could not immediately comment. In a written reply to Bloomberg, OneConnect said it does not have any information to provide on the matter.

OneConnect offers AI-powered services such as risk management to financial companies. The company's partners include 468 banks, as well as 1,890 other companies including insurers, brokerages, fund managers and private-equity investors.