Chinese fintech group Ant Group is doubling down on its global expansion with Alipay+

Chinese fintech major Ant Group is looking to boost its global presence with its Alipay+ digital offering, as it seeks to connect mobile payment apps around the world.

“What we've found is that people want to use their home e-wallets when they travel abroad. So they don't want to have to load their card into another app that they don't know as well,” said Douglas Feigin, senior vice president of Ant Group, a subsidiary of the Chinese tech giant. Ali Babato CNBC.

Ant International, the group's global arm, introduced Alipay+ in 2020, allowing foreigners to use apps from their home countries to make payments in China by scanning QR codes for Alipay – Ant Group's largely domestically focused platform – and in other countries. Through local partners.

“We see a huge opportunity for expansion and the relatively broad coverage we have in Asia – and would like to replicate it in places like the Middle East, Latin America and Europe,” Feigin said. “People from all these areas are heading to other areas, so it's a great opportunity for expansion.”

Ant had invested in country-specific e-wallets across Asia, but CEOs wanted to take their products overseas, said Feigin, who is also chairman of Ant International.

The company had some cross-border tourism business from clients traveling outside China, but that was “mostly focused on where Chinese tourists were going,” Feigin said. Ant entered Europe and the United States, where Chinese tourism was booming before the Covid-19 pandemic, through Alipay.

With its Alipay+ offering, Ant is seeking to make the most of its early forays into those markets.

“We took advantage of Alipay already being accepted by many merchants around the world, so one of our first steps was to (convert) those merchants into Alipay+ merchants,” Feigin said. “So instead of just accepting a wallet, they can accept multiple wallets.” .

Alipay+ now connects 88 million merchants in 57 countries and regions with 1.5 billion consumer accounts across more than 25 e-wallets and banking apps, according to Ant.

As part of its overseas business expansion, Ant has bought stakes in several companies such as Singaporean payments company 2C2P in 2022 and South Korean company Kakao Pay in 2017.

Ant also partnered with national digital payment services such as SGQR in Singapore, DueNow QR in Malaysia, and ZeroPay in South Korea last year.

“Ant Group’s early vision for global expansion was in Southeast Asia,” Zenon Capron, founder and director of consultancy Capronasia, said in a January report. “The company acquired strategic stakes in e-wallets in every major economy in Southeast Asia.” .

Ant is also expanding into emerging markets such as Sri Lanka and Cambodia. The company has also expanded into Europe and the Middle East, partnering with European e-wallets Tinaba in July last year and Nexi in February as well as Dubai Duty Free in the Middle East at the beginning of this year.

Feigin said there are also growth opportunities in the company's existing markets such as Singapore and South Korea. For example, a lot of people use mobile payments in China, but their number is still much lower compared to people in other countries.

“There is a lot of room for growth. I think a lot of people only think about using traditional payment methods when they travel abroad.”

“When you think about big markets that receive a lot of tourists, like Thailand and Japan, the growth opportunities for mobile app payments are huge.”

“Following a restructuring imposed by China’s regulators that occurred in conjunction with various geopolitical tensions that affected its ability to expand in certain markets, Ant adjusted its global expansion strategy,” Capron said. “The result is Alipay+ which aims to solve interoperability barriers.” For electronic wallets.

Feigin said the company first targeted countries with large populations to quickly expand its user base. It also looked at major tourist destinations such as Japan, Thailand and Singapore.

“These are big markets for people wanting to come and visit, so we focused a lot on building their trade coverage there,” Feigin said.

It is now doubling its global expansion, setting its sights on the European, Latin American and Middle Eastern markets.

— CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.