Asia

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s $2.9 billion deal to buy a slice of China’s largest hypermart chain pits it against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the world’s largest retail arena.

Australia has a high ratio of consumers using contactless payment cards, while mobile payment adoption has lagged because of some large banks’ aversion to supporting Apple Pay and slower uptake in the region for Android Pay.

National Payment Corp. of Vietnam (NAPAS) and Ant Financial Services have signed a memorandum of understanding for a strategic partnership extending acceptance of Ant’s Alipay wallet to Vietnam.

India’s IDFC Bank and local mobile wallet provider MobiKwik are collaborating to provide a virtual prepaid Visa card for nearly 65 million MobiKwik users.

Many companies in the payments realm want to be seen as the next Uber, but Uber's Asian counterpart Grab is working to become something else — the next Octopus.

China enacted sweeping changes to a business competition law to address fraud in the e-commerce industry, which is plagued by malfeasance ranging from fake positive reviews to merchants goosing sales numbers.

NetEase Inc., China’s second-largest video game publisher, is deepening a push into e-commerce with plans to increase spending on products from the U.S., Europe and Japan to sell to local consumers.

Grab, Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing app, is kicking off a new digital wallet service in Singapore as it stakes a claim to the region’s burgeoning mobile payments sector.

Three of Australia’s largest banks—Wespac, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the National Australia Bank—have joined forces for a mobile wallet joint venture called Beem, with person-to-person payments as the first use case.

A rising tide of Chinese dealmaking in the U.S. is spurring Congress to propose tighter measures to restrict investments that are increasingly viewed as a threat to America’s national security.