Alipay+ Planned to Come Soon to Indonesia

Company fintech part of Alibaba, Ant International, plans to expand Alipay+ services in Indonesia this year. This ambition is part of the company's plan to work on the Southeast Asian market.

Quote from coil, Ant International CEO Yang Peng revealed that his party is actively discussing with local partners, such as Bank Mandiri and DANA, to realize this plan.

"And we are also very active in discussing with the Indonesian Payment Systems Association (ASPI) and also Bank Indonesia (BI) to see whether we can bring in foreign tourists, users. e-wallet, come to Indonesia," said Peng during a visit to the Office of the Minister of Communication and Information, last week (19/4).

His party also discussed with the Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie Setiadi regarding the implementation of payment services cross-border through the Alipay+ QR payment feature for foreign tourists, as well as Alipay+ users in Indonesia. So far, many MSMEs do not receive potential payments from foreign tourists because tourists usually make payments by credit card.

"If this service can be implemented in Indonesia, I think many MSMEs will start to attract more tourists to shop with them," he added.

Alipay+ Development

Quoting from its website, Alipay+ is a payment gateway platform that serves merchants throughout the world, with a special focus on the Asia-Pacific region. The solution presented is to integrate various e-wallets and payment options, increase cross-border payment coverage, and simplify transactions for merchants and customers.

If merchant has partnered with Alipay+, consumers can simply use their local electronic wallet as a payment method by scanning a QR code (such as the QRIS concept).

Since its introduction in 2020, Alipay+ has worked with about 30 e-wallets leading until last year. Some of them are mPay (Macau, China), Hipay (Mongolia), Changi Pay (Singapore), OCBC (Singapore), Naver Pay (South Korea), Toss Pay (South Korea), Kakao Pay (South Korea), TrueMoney ( Thailand), and Touch 'n Go eWallet (Malaysia).

Electronic wallet users from each country can even use the application when traveling and shopping at merchants who have collaborated with Alipay in China. It is claimed that Alipay+ has connected tens of millions of merchants in 56 countries with more than 1,4 billion payment accounts in Asia and beyond.

Throughout last year, in terms of transaction volume, AlipayHK, Kakao Pay, Touch 'n Go eWallet, and GCash are among the four most popular e-wallet partners used by cross-border travelers, apart from Alipay itself. Meanwhile, Touch 'n Go eWallet, mPay, and TrueMoney are ranked in the top three based on month-on-month (MoM) increase in transaction volume in November 2023.

This achievement shows that merchants in China, Macau, Japan, South Korea and Singapore are among those who have benefited most from the surge in cross-border payments.