Ant InternationalChinese fintech giant Ant Group aims to strengthen its international footprint through Alipay+, its digital offering designed to connect mobile payment apps globally. “After doing our research, we discovered that travelers want to use their home e-wallets when travelling internationally. Ant Group, an affiliate of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, implemented Alipay+ in 2020 so foreigners wouldn’t need to use an unfamiliar app with which to make payments in China by scanning QR codes on Alipay. Ant had invested in numerous country-specific e-wallets across Asia but decided their CEOs wanted their products exported globally, according to Douglas Feagin – also President of Ant International. Feagin noted a great opportunity for expansion from their relatively wide coverage in Asia; similar plans could be replicated across Middle East, Latam, and Europe regions as people travel between them all regularly. With people traveling between them all often coming from diverse origins it would provide ample scope to grow. “Feagin said his company did have some cross-border tourism business from customers traveling outside China; however, most of this focussed around where Chinese tourists visited.” Ant entered Europe and the U.S. where Chinese tourism was flourishing prior to Covid-19 pandemic through Alipay. Ant’s Alipay+ offering seeks to capitalize on early inroads made into those markets by Chinese visitors. “One of our first goals was to convert existing Alipay merchants to Alipay+ merchants.” Feagin notes that Alipay+ now connects 88 million merchants in 57 countries and regions to 1.5 billion consumer accounts across 25 e-wallets and bank apps worldwide, according to Ant.Alipay+ also partners with national digital payments services including Singapore Payments firm 2C2P (2ndClick2Pay in Singapore and Malaysia’s DuitNow QR/ZeroPay/Tango Pay in South Korea) among others for international expansion efforts. Ant has made investments and signed partnerships agreements with national digital payment services like Singapore Ant Group’s initial expansion goal focused on Southeast Asia. “The company took strategic stakes in electronic wallets across Southeast Asian economies,” according to Zennon Kapron, founder and director of Kapronasia consulting firm in January report. Additionally, Ant has expanded into emerging markets including Sri Lanka and Cambodia. In Europe and Middle East, they partnered with Tinaba (in July last year) and Nexi (in February) before signing Dubai Duty Free at the start of this year in terms of Middle Eastern expansion. There were also growth prospects within established markets like Singapore and South Korea: for instance many Chinese use mobile payments but this rate still lags far behind other nations, according to Feagin. “There’s plenty of potential here – too often people assume traditional payment methods when traveling overseas.” If we look at major markets such as Thailand or Japan that attract many tourists, such as payment through mobile apps can only grow further.” Ant has taken steps to modify its global expansion strategy as the result of restructuring mandated by China’s regulators as well as geopolitical tensions that affected certain markets, thus altering their expansion plan and becoming part of Ant’s business expansion plans. Alipay+ was designed to address interoperability hiccups among e-wallets,” explained Kapron. To quickly expand user bases quickly and ensure compatibility across countries such as Japan, Thailand and Singapore. Feagin reported. “These markets attract many tourists looking for travel deals and so we focused on expanding merchant coverage there,” noted Feagin. Now the company plans on continuing its global expansion strategy with plans in Europe, Latin America and Middle East markets in its sights – CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed this report.
