Hong Kong – Ant International has expanded the network of banking partners connected to its Alipay+ unified wallet gateway, adding more financial institutions as demand for cross-border mobile payments continues to grow across the Asia-Pacific region.
The latest addition is Hang Seng Bank, which becomes Alipay+’s first banking partner in Hong Kong. Through the integration, users of the Hang Seng Mobile App can make QR code payments in mainland China and overseas using the app at more than 100 million merchants across over 55 countries and regions.
The expansion comes as outbound cross-border payments from Asia Pacific are projected to outpace the global average in growth. According to Ant International, consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and consumer-to-business (C2B) outbound cross-border payment volume from the region could reach US$3.7 trillion by 2032, nearly doubling from 2024 levels.
Alipay+ is currently accepted in more than 220 markets and enables banks to provide cross-border payment services through a single integration. The platform also works with more than 10 national QR payment systems, including Malaysia’s DuitNow, Thailand’s PromptPay and Uzbekistan’s HUMO, allowing participating banks to extend mobile payment services without establishing separate agreements with merchants in each market.
Beyond payments, Alipay+ offers banks access to its Super App Platform, enabling them to integrate third-party mini-programmes and plug-in services such as travel booking and social features into their mobile applications. The company said these capabilities are intended to increase customer engagement and broaden the range of digital services available through banking apps.
Ant International cited research from McKinsey & Company indicating that improvements in customer experience can contribute to higher returns, faster growth and lower operating costs for banks, while also increasing total shareholder returns compared with institutions with lower customer experience performance.
Banks that have already connected to the Alipay+ network include Public Bank Berhad in Malaysia; Bank of the Philippine Islands and Asia United Bank in the Philippines; OCBC in Singapore; Kasikorn Bank and Siam Commercial Bank in Thailand; and Vietcombank in Vietnam.
In addition to Alipay+, Ant International said it is working with banks through other technology platforms. These include its Falcon TST artificial intelligence foreign exchange model, which the company said is used by financial institutions including Citi and Barclays for long-term foreign exchange forecasting, and its Whale blockchain platform, which supports near-instant, round-the-clock cross-border liquidity transfers. Standard Chartered and HSBC are among the banks collaborating with Ant International to integrate the blockchain-based solution into their existing infrastructure.
