Brief: Ant Financial raises bid for MoneyGram to $1.2b. The deal may still fail.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Photo credit: Alibaba.

• Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group, has raised its bid for US money transfer firm MoneyGram to US$1.2 billion. The latter’s board unanimously approved the deal.
• The deal is a crucial plank of Alibaba’s global expansion plan into payments and ecommerce, which comes after it dominated online shopping in China.
• Ant initially made a US$880 million bid for MoneyGram. It was then outdone by US e-payments company EuroNet, which raised the stakes to US$1 billion.
• It’s not a done deal for Ant, however. It still needs regulatory approval from the US government, and may face additional hurdles as several Chinese deals have previously been blocked for presenting natural security risks.

Source: Reuters

Update on April 18: The article previously mentioned that Ant Financial is a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. That is incorrect.