Jack Ma’s Ant Financial pushes into Korea with $200m investment

Photo credit: AsiaSociety.

Ant Financial, a spin-off from Jack Ma’s online shopping empire and maker of China’s top mobile wallet app, today announced the latest in its series of overseas investments.

The Chinese company is investing US$200 million into South Korea’s Kakao Pay, a soon-to-launch subsidiary of messaging app KakaoTalk that will allow people to make cashless payments through their phones both for purchases on the web and in stores.

It comes just four days after Ant Financial made a similar move in the Philippines and nearly five months after its maiden overseas investment in Thailand.

Pay it forward

KakaoTalk, first launched in 2010, is a chat app that’s pretty much ubiquitous in South Korea – the company claims 97 percent of smartphone owners in Korea are active users of the social network. It’s backed up by an array of companion apps, like Kakao Music, Kakao TV, and Kakao Taxi. The upcoming Kakao Pay will be the latest addition.

Ant Financial’s Alipay, with just over 450 million active users, is China’s top app for online and in-store payments, and features a range of financial services, such as a personal investment fund and loans.

Ant’s Korea deal sees Jack Ma’s firm, valued at an estimated US$60 billion ahead of a possible IPO this year, “offer its wide range of digital financial services through Kakao Pay in South Korea,” says today’s statement.

“South Korea is an important market for Ant Financial in its global expansion, and we see many opportunities in the market for innovative services and growth in mobile payments,” said Douglas Feagin, president of Ant Financial International.

South Korea has the world’s highest ownership of smartphones as a percentage of population – 88 percent.