Alibaba’s Financial Services Affliate Expands in Europe with Ingenico Deal
An affiliate of China-based e-commerce giant Alibaba will expand its payments prowess in Europe via a deal with Ingenico Group, according to a report. The deal calls for the France-based payments provider to enable customers of Ant Financial Services—an affiliate of Alibaba—to access European offline merchants that are part of the Ingenico network, according to an Aug. 9 report in the Wall Street Journal. The Alibaba spokesperson declined to provide details.
According to the Journal report, Ingenico will earn service fees from Alipay for the transactions but will make no investment. Ingenico had previously said it would handle some online cross-border payments for Alipay. Ingenico processes transactions in at least 170 companies, while Alipay operates in about 70.
Earlier this year, with Ant eying Chinese and international expansion, the financial services provider landed $4.5 billion in new funding that values it at a whopping $60 billion. The company identified cloud computing and biometric verification as areas it’s also seeking to develop. Among the investors in the round include sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp., bank CCB Trust, insurer China Life and China Post Group, the Journal story said.
Ant launched in 2015 when it was spun off from Alibaba during the Chinese e-commerce giant’s record-breaking IPO. Ant says it active user base stands at some 450 million consumers.
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