Ant Acquires Singapore’s helloPay Service – Still in the Hunt to Buy MoneyGram

Posted by at 6:28 am on April 19, 2017

ANT Financial, the payment affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has acquired Singapore-based payment service helloPay Group, part of the Chinese firm’s drive to boost its Alipay brand and presence in Southeast Asia.

HelloPay is the payment subsidiary of e-commerce firm Lazada Group, which is majority-owned by Alibaba after a US$1 billion deal in 2016, and will be rebranded as Alipay in relevant markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, Ant said in a statement yesterday.

The rebranded service will remain independent of Alipay’s existing app, which has 450 million users in China and is the country’s most popular mobile payment app. Ant did not disclose financial terms of the helloPay deal.

In recent months, Ant Financial has invested in several payment firms in Asia, but helloPay marks the firm’s first foray into rebranding an acquisition under the Alipay name.

It comes as Ant is trying to boost brand recognition in several markets where helloPay operates.

This week, Ant also announced a hefty second bid for US transfer service MoneyGram International Inc, trumping rival US bidder Euronet Worldwide Inc in a bitter battle and valuing MoneyGram at US$1.2 billion.

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