Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial has added Philippines to its expanding mobile money portfolio. The Chinese fintech giant is taking a substantial minority interest in Mynt, the mobile payments platform of Global Telecom, a major mobile operator in the Philippines.
It’s the latest deal in Ant’s ambitious rollup of stakes in mobile money and other fintech providers, including MoneyGram in the U.S., Ascend Money in Thailand, Kakao in Korea, Paytm in India and M-Daq in Singapore.
Ant, which manages 58 percent of all online transactions happening in China through its Alipay service, is raising $3 billion in debt to finance more investments and acquisitions.
Last year, venture capitalists pumped a record $5.4 into fintech startups in Asia, accounting for 43 percent of the global fintech financing.
Photo credit: Getty Images
