Ant Financial steps up overseas expansion efforts

Ant Financial, Alibaba's finance affiliate, announced on Wednesday a plan to connect with more overseas service providers in order to help Chinese get better experience when travelling abroad.

The project, called global merchants sharing platform, aims to attract a million overseas merchants to connect to Alipay, China's largest third-party payment service owned by Ant Financial, in the next three years and offer Chinese outbound travelers local services via the payment app.

Sabrina Peng, president of Alipay International, said in a conference in Denmark on Wednesday that the company will first carry out the project in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States.

According to the project, Ant Financial will build a big data technology-enabled cloud platform, which will help reduce the cost of cross-border payment for overseas merchants.

The goal is to help Chinese outbound travelers get the best local deals, whether from restaurants or ride-hailing applications, when they open Alipay when travel abroad.

Alipay has 450 million users registered under their real names. Overseas expansion is one of the top priorities for Ant Financial, said the company.