China's Ant Financial is making a move on the Malaysian market, forming a mobile wallet joint venture with a subsidiary of local bank CIMB.
Ant will hold a minority stake in the equity JV with CIMB's Touch 'n Go unit, which provides cards to millions of Malaysians for payments at toll roads, public transportation systems, parking and retailers.
Tapping into the expertise of Ant's Alipay unit, the new venture will bring mobile payments, as well as other FS services such as e-commerce, to these Touch 'n Go users.
Tengku Dato’ Sri Zafrul Aziz, CEO, CIMB, says: "TNG’s leading position combined with Ant Financial’s Alipay capabilities will allow all Malaysians to participate and access secure payments and digital financial services for the long term."
Malaysia is the first country to join the Electronic World Trade Platform, a program initiated by Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma to help SMEs expand their trading capabilities worldwide.
Eric Jing, CEO, Ant Financial, says: "To bring digital financial inclusion to more people across the world, Ant Financial takes an approach of collaborating with strategic partners overseas and enabling them with its innovative solutions.
"Given TNG’s leading position in the market and vast customer base, we believe that we can help it to offer exciting and innovative products to Malaysian consumers."