Jack Ma’s Ant Financial merges with Lazada’s HelloPay Group

Alipay, Ant Financial’s mobile wallet, has the most market share in China’s mobile payment industry. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Almost exactly one year ago, Alibaba announced its US$1 billion purchase of a controlling stake in Lazada, the largest online shopping and selling marketplace in Southeast Asia – and a gateway to the region for the Chinese tech giant.

Now, Alibaba is moving its plans one step forward. Ant Financial, Alibaba’s financial affiliate, announced today that it merged with HelloPay Group, the company behind HelloPay, Lazada’s online payment platform.

Following the merger, HelloPay will be rebranded as Ant Financial’s online and mobile payment solution, Alipay. In its respective markets, it will be known as Alipay Singapore, Alipay Malaysia, Alipay Philippines, and Alipay Indonesia.

The HelloPay team will also join Ant Financial in its Singapore office. After the merger, the Chinese financial services company will be in charge of operating the rebranded HelloPay payment solution.

However, all of HelloPay’s features and services will remain unchanged. The rebranded HelloPay will stay separate from Alipay and continue to provide payment services on Lazada’s platform.

“There will be no impact to HelloPay’s users and payment partners,” stated Douglas Feagin, senior vice president of Ant Financial, in a press release.

Last August, Lazada Indonesia co-CEO Florian Holm told Tech in Asia about Alipay integrating with HelloPay, citing the former’s experience in payment security.

“It has massively better systems. It’s extremely important to have good fraud detection,” he said. “Alipay is the biggest and most sophisticated wallet in the world.”

See: Lazada’s plan to crack online payments in Indonesia

According to Florian, customers still prefer cash-on-delivery payment methods. Integrating with Alipay, however, could help the Southeast Asian ecommerce company improve its online payment solution. Currently, HelloPay does not have a mobile app.

According to Ant Financial, the company’s merger with HelloPay Group does not tie in with the joint venture between Indonesian media conglomerate Emtek and Ant Financial, announced last week.

In addition to HelloPay Group, Ant Financial also has a stake in Mynt, a financial services company in the Philippines, and Paytm, a payments company in India. This week, the Chinese finance company also upped its bid for Moneygram, a US-based money transfer firm, to US$1.2 billion.