Singapore-headquartered FinTech firm Ant International is appointed as an inaugural foreign Institution Partner (FIP) of China’s Cross-border Interconnection Payment Gateway (CPG), under the guidance of the People’s Bank of China and the Payment & Clearing Association of China (PCAC).

Ant International and Alipay are the largest player in the CPG scheme with the largest number of card network and wallet partners, the broadest use cases and largest business volume, according to a statement on Wednesday.

The new CPG scheme is designed to raise connection efficiency and improve system stability for overseas payment partners. Its timely launch opens a safe and smoother highway for these partners to access the Chinese market.

Alipay+, the cross-border payment and digitization services under Ant International, will leverage this new direct connection setup to accelerate growth of its partner eco-system to expand global coverage. This will enable an even more convenient and secure travel experience for international consumers while helping international wallets connect their digital growth networks to 80 million Alipay merchants across China.

As a unified wallet gateway, Alipay+ now partners with 36 e-wallets and eight national QR payment schemes and payment systems worldwide, connecting over 100 million merchants to 1.8 billion consumers accounts.

As the FIP with the broadest fintech coverage in the new CPG scheme, Alipay+ now enables seven major international bank card brands and users from twelve countries and regions to scan-and-pay transactions in the Chinese Mainland. On top of that, Alipay+ also has various technology partnerships with over twenty e-wallets and payment networks across Asia, Europe and other regions.

Alipay+ has built extensive partnerships with government-sponsored mobile payment schemes in emerging markets, to support national agendas for digitization and inclusive growth. Eight national QR schemes and payment systems are developing active international presence via Alipay+, including SGQR (Singapore), PayNet DuitNow (Malaysia), ZeroPay (South Korea), Bakong (Cambodia), NCHL/FonePay (Nepal), LankaPay (Sri Lanka), QRIS (Indonesia), and HUMO (Uzbekistan).

Asia-Pacific region reported $9.8 trillion in e-wallet transaction volume in 2023, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the global total, and maintains the world’s highest e-wallet penetration rate.

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