China’s Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba, is continuing its acquisition spree by purchasing stakes two digital payments firms, including South Korea’s Kakao Pay and the Philippines’ Mynt.
Alipay, Ant’s digital payment service, invested $200 million in Kakao Corp.’s Kakao Pay, a popular South Korean social media portal enabling digital payments, according to Reuters. The move will streamline the payment process for South Koreans shopping on Alibaba.
This month Ant also took a “substantial minority” interest in Mynt, a financial technology company operated by Philippines-based Globe Telecom, which announced the deal on its website Feb. 17.
Ant, which has agreed to buy MoneyGram International for $880 million, recently announced it’s raising $3 billion to fund various acquisitions.
An employee scans a quick response (QR) code displayed on the Ant Financial Services Group's Alipay app, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., inside a Sa Sa International Holdings Ltd. store in an arranged photograph in Hong Kong, China, on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016. The urgency to prepare regulatory environments for fintech is growing as banks begin offering digital services such as biometric authentication and as mobile-payment systems such as Apple Pay and AliPay are introduced around the region. Photographer: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg
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Ranjana Clark is the newest member of Texas Capital Bancshares' board of directors; Minnesota's Wings Credit Union and Colorado's Ent Credit Union are merging; Regions Bank adds Angela Santone to its C-suite; and more in this week's banking news roundup.
The Long Island-based regional bank, which reported another quarterly loss Friday, continues to hire in the commercial-and-industrial lending sphere as it seeks to diversify its commercial real estate-heavy business.
