Signage for Ant Financial Services Group's Alipay payment system, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., is displayed on a store entrance in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016. About 200 million consumers use Alipay at physical stores because of the ease and speed at which consumers can make purchases. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
SEOUL: Alibaba’s payment affiliate Ant Financial will invest US$200mil (RM891.90mil) in a unit of South Korean messaging giant Kakao, the companies said, the Chinese firm’s latest step to expand its global reach.
The investment in Kakao Pay comes less than a month after Ant bought US-based payments operator MoneyGram for around US$880mil (RM3.92bil) and struck a partnership deal with Thailand’s Ascend Money in November.
