Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial enters Malaysian market

KUALA LUMPUR - Ant Financial, the affiliate financialservice of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba, entered partnership with 7-ElevenMalaysia on Monday by officially launching the Alipay cashless payment servicein over 2,100 stores in Malaysia.

The payment service, facilitated by local third partypayment platform MOL Accessportal, mainly targets tourists from the Chinesemainland, the number of which exceeded 2.1 million in 2016.

The Malaysian government is expecting to receive more than 3million arrivals from China this year.

The partnership came after Alibaba group in March announceda plan to set up an e-commerce hub in Malaysia encompassing logistics,cloud-computing and e-financial services to boost trade and e-commerce in theregion, part of the collaboration between Alibaba and the Malaysian governmentin the development of a Digital Free Trade Zone in Malaysia.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, while attending theBelt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing earlier thismonth, also paid a visit to the headquarters of Alibaba group.

Vincent Tan Chee Yioun, founder of Malaysia's Berjaya Groupand majority shareholder of 7-Eleven Malaysia and MOL Global, Inc, the parentcompany of MOL Accessportal, said the partnership is a win-win solution for AntFinancial and 7-Eleven, as well as for China and Malaysia.

Tan also pledged to bring Alipay to more businesses andretailer shops under the Berjaya group, including Starbucks, Kenny Rogers,Cosway, Radioshack as well as Berjaya hotels and resorts.

The entry of Alipay to Malaysia will be quite challengingfor local Malaysian payment service providers, said Tan, adding it is not a badidea though, in that someday perhaps Malaysian people can also use Alipay whenthey go to China.

Douglas Feagin, senior vice president of InternationalBusiness at Ant Financial, when asked about Alipay's plan to reach localMalaysian customers, said Ant Financial will focus in the first place onserving the Alipay customers as they come to Malaysia, and a local solutioncomes a little bit later.

He declined to give a user projection for the Malaysianmarket, but noted that half a billion people in China now are Alipay users.