[Tokyo, Japan - March 5, 2024] - During the 2024 Japan FinTech Festival, executives from Ant International discussed the company’s vision on expanding partnerships in innovation and ESG initiatives to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth.
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Yang Peng, CEO of Ant International shared the company’s learnings and insights into the role of digital payment and AI innovation into driving international tourism and trade at the 2024 Japan FinTech Festival on Tuesday.
Cross-border mobile payment contributes to tourism in Japan
Working with PayPay among many other partners, Alipay+, the cross-border mobile payment and marketing solution of Ant International, now helps users of a total of 16 overseas e-wallets and bank apps to enjoy seamless payment at over 1.5 million local merchants across Japan. Number of transactions and total processing volume has grown significantly, especially from users of Kaokao Pay (South Korea), AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR, China), GCash (the Philippines), and Touch ’n Go eWallet (Malaysia).
“Japan is the birthplace of the QR code and the mobile revolution,” said Yang. “With mobile payment, international travelers are going farther and wider for more unique and immerse experience, spending money at smaller shops, many of whom simply do businesses with a QR code. The transaction volume is growing very fast.”
Introduced in 2020, Alipay+ Cross-Border Mobile Payment Service now connects over 88 million merchants in 57 countries and regions to 1.5 billion consumer accounts on over 25 e-wallets and banking apps, allowing consumers to travel and pay worry-free globally, and merchants to build out cross-border consumer engagement and digital marketing.
The service builds on Alipay+’s extensive regional partnerships, including those with national QR schemes including Singapore’s SGQR, Malaysia’s PayNet, South Korea’s ZeroPay, and Sri Lanka's LankaPay.
Driving secure real-time payment through AI in International Trade
With the rise of open-banking and other innovation initiatives, AI will increasingly become center of industry collaboration and product development. Ant International has been working closely with partners to apply AI technology into various areas, such as developing AI-driven FX services, customizing marketing solutions for global brands and enhancing risk management and fighting fraud in cross-border payments and FX operations.
Building the Talent Pool for Future Digital Economy in Asia
Asia is a huge market for everyone, with huge population and economic potentials as well as the largest base for SMEs that are hunger for digital transformation, Yang noted. Beyond payment, Alipay+ works with partners to bring an expanding digital toolkit to SMEs. Over 5,000 micro businesses in Southeast Asia have adopted Alipay+ D-store, an all-in-one and cost-efficient ordering solution that aims to revolutionize the checkout experience and enable merchants to leap into digitalization and drive revenue growth.
Breaking grounds to address the challenges that arise in payment and digital operation, Ant International is positioned as a “connector” to enable connectivity for mobile payment, help its partners with financial accessibility, and ensure simple solutions for businesses in their international journey or path for localization.
“The key to building a vibrant, sustainable future digital economy is a vibrant talent pool,” said Yang. “Ant International has extensive partnerships with regional public and private sectors on training next-gen innovators with technology strength and cross-sector insights. We look forward to working with local partners in Japan to facilitate growth of young talents in the financial and digitalization sectors,” Yang added.
Douglas L. Feagin, President of Ant International and Head of Alipay+, shared on his panel further how “the checkout revolution” becomes gateway to new technology and product innovations in digital commerce beyond payment.
“Digital tools like the Alipay+ D-Store helps businesses, esp. SMEs set up online operations in a matter of minutes with a turn-key digital solution,” said Feagin.
He also noted robust technology to protect cross-industry collaboration actually enhances cross-industry efficiency in marketing and user engagement. “By offering strong protection of data, privacy-conserving computing technology helps drive more transaction and growth.” Feagin said. “Technology also enables Interoperability among the proliferating public and private mobile payment services, allowing players to seek international growth beyond borders.”
Leiming Chen, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant International, discussed with fellow panelists the potential of AI in enabling SMEs to navigate their journey towards sustainability.
“SME’s face a number of obstacles in their ‘green’ endeavors: lack of taxonomy, lack of data governance framework, hefty costs, and inadequate product innovation, “said Chen. “Public-private partnership and AI-driven innovation, such as in the field of green computing, can be the twin engines for small businesses to make the sustainability breakthrough.”
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About Ant International
Headquartered in Singapore, Ant International powers the future of global commerce with digital innovation for everyone and every business to thrive. In close collaboration with partners, we support merchants of all sizes worldwide to realize their growth aspirations through a comprehensive range of tech-driven digital payment and financial services solutions.
About Japan Fintech Festival
Homepage of Japan Fintech Festival: https://www.fintechfestival.jp/
Festival Agenda:
- March 5 Southeast Asia’s leap to digital mastery – Reshaping the global landscape
Speaker: Yang Peng, CEO of Ant International
- March 5 Beyond Borders, Beyond Barriers: The importance of harmonized new global financial infrastructure (GFIF) for stable financial markets
Panelists include Douglas Feagin, President of Ant International
- March 4 Addressing the ESG data paradox: Availability, comparability and connectivity
Panelists include Leiming Chen, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ant International
- March 6 Tokenisation of real-world assets: From concept to commercialisation
- March 4 Digital assets: Foundational infrastructure to unlock the internet of value
Panelists include Kelvin Li, Head of Platform Tech, Ant International
Media Inquiries
Li Tao
Ant International
tao.l@antgroup.com
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