Ant Financial to invest in Thai fintech company, Ascend Money

• Partnership with Ascend to fuel mobile lifestyle and digital payment growth
• Ant Financial aims to serve two billion users globally within 10 years

 

ANT Financial Services Group, a digital financial services providers, on Nov 1, announced its global blueprint for promoting digital financial inclusion, and a strategic agreement with Ascend Money, a fintech company in Thailand.

Under the agreement Ant Financial will invest in Ascend Money, which aims to accelerate the growth of a mobile lifestyle and digital financial services platform in Thailand and support its growth in Southeast Asia.

Together with Ant Financial, Ascend Money will grow its online and offline payment and financial services ecosystem and strengthen its payment services for users and merchants.

The deal represents Ant Financial’s first investment in a Thailand-based company. With this partnership Ant Financial, which also runs Alipay, will provide Ascend Money with strategic and technical support for the growth of its business.

Leveraging on Ant Financial’s capabilities in payment, Big Data, risk control and cloud computing capabilities, the partnership with Ascend Money will build on synergies in digital financial services in order to offer Thai consumers comprehensive and equal access to financial services.

Ascend Money is Ant Financial’s first partner in Southeast Asia and second globally after Paytm in India.

“Imagination, innovation and information are key to realising Ant Financial’s goal of promoting equal access to financial services on a global platform,” said Ant Financial CEO Eric Jing (pic, right).

“As we aim to provide services to over two billion users in ten years, we are building an open ecosystem with our global partners. The payment market in Southeast Asia has vast untapped potential and we are dedicated to contributing our share to bring a greater variety of convenient and reliable financial services to small and micro enterprises and individual consumers.”

“It’s our life purpose to help the under-served, which include digital consumers and the under-banked,” Ascend Group CEO Punnamas Vichitkulwongsa (pic right) said.

“Our goal is to provide innovative financial services to over one hundred million customers and SMEs in Thailand and Southeast Asia by 2020.”

Ascend Money is a fintech company in Thailand and Southeast Asia, operating under the TrueMoney brand for payments and Ascend Nano for lending.

With its headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, Ascend Money operates in six countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.

Ascend Money targets two groups, including digital consumers with its mobile wallet application and the under-banked with its agent network.

It currently provides payment services such as domestic and international remittance, bill payment, top up services, online and offline payments and payroll services. Future services will include lending, insurance and investment.

In early 2015 Ant Financial joined forces with Paytm, to promote secured digital payment to local users in India.

Ant Financial’s technologies in payment and risk control support a mobile lifestyle, ranging from online and offline payment, mobile top-up, utility bill payments and movie ticketing, of over 150 million Indian consumers.

Ant Financial is working with global payment partners, including Concardis, Ingenico, Wirecard and Zapper in Europe, First Data and Verifone in North America, Paysbuy and Counter Services in Southeast Asia, Recruit in Japan and KICC and ICB in Korea.
 
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