Alibaba makes its move in Indonesia, partners Emtek on mobile payments

Photo credit: Alibaba.

Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group’s global payments chess game continues as it announced in a release that its payments affiliate Ant Financial has locked in a partnership with Indonesian media conglomerate Emtek. Together, they’ll launch a new mobile payments product as well as other financial services.

The payments solution will be offered on Blackberry Messenger (BBM), which is operated by an Emtek subsidiary and has 63 million monthly active users in Indonesia. It claims to be the most popular chat app in the country of 250 million people.

Emtek is turning BBM into much more than just a chat app. It allows people to shop, play games, watch videos, and more. Tying everything together would be the payments system jointly developed by Alibaba and Emtek.

The Indonesian media entity operates television networks, produces shows, and runs a number of online publications. It has made investments in ecommerce businesses like Bukalapak.