Groupon successor Fave partners Alipay to welcome Chinese tourists to Southeast Asia

Photo credit: Ant Financial.

Fave, Southeast Asia’s spiritual successor to the Groupon legacy, announced today it has partnered with Ant Financial to implement the latter’s Alipay service.

Fave offers discounts and bookings to offline businesses like restaurants, health clubs, fitness centers, beauty services, and more.

Alipay users will be able to use their payments app at businesses on Fave’s platform initially in Singapore, without having to sign up to the Fave app itself. Much like several other companies tying up with Alipay, the main drive appears to be the multitudes of Chinese tourists expected to visit the region – Fave says that over 3 million tourists from China will land in Singapore this year, so allowing them to use Alipay with its local businesses will benefit them.

Fave claims to have more than 10,000 restaurants and offline retailers on its website and over 1 million active users.

Fave grew out of KFit, a Malaysia-based subscription service that offered access to gyms and fitness centers. It has since acquired and rebranded Groupon’s online-to-offline operations in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Ant Financial’s Alipay is one of the dominant payment platforms in its native China, where most of the service’s 520 million active users are based. The company has been making headway into Southeast Asia with multiple partnerships, its most recent collaboration being with CIMB bank in Malaysia.

Update, 12:20pm SGT: The story initially mentioned that Fave users would be able to use Alipay in Singapore. It is actually Alipay users who will be able to use Alipay with Fave-affiliated businesses in Singapore, without having to use the Fave app itself. This has been corrected.

See: Chinese tourists are bringing their wallets – and China’s tech giants – overseas