Ant Financial launches cross-border remittance services in HK, Philippines

Jing said the new service fits in well with the pressing need of nearly 12 million Filipino domestic workers and a total of 1.7 billion unbanked population worldwide.

Banking on the partnership between Alipay and Standard Chartered, Ma said the new service stands as a living embodiment of the tech firm and traditional financial institution joining forces to embrace a fresh bout of next big things that will reshape our future.

"Traditional financial institutions that refuse to make a change and embrace the innovations have no future ahead," he said.

Amid the hype of blockchain technology, Ma said such a "game-changing" technology has what it takes to blaze a trail in the inclusive finance. He is more than happy to see that Ant Financial eventually finds out one of the right growth track for the technology-cross-border remittance.

Carved out of Ma's e-commerce behemoth Alibaba seven years ago, Ant Financial has charted it global course in a proactive manner.

It ramped up overseas expansion to formed partnership with Globe Telecom in February 2017.

This was followed by the roll-out of Alipay HK in May, the maiden version of the payment-by-smartphone app in a local currency, in its quest to beefing up presence in the Asia’s financial hub.

In September last year, Ant Financial joined hands with Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison to give the flagship conglomerate a stake in its Hong Kong business with the founding of a new joint venture.

Nowadays, AlipayHK has more than 1.5 million users of its app in Hong Kong, and more than 20,000 merchants accepting it – from brick-and-mortar chains such as Mannings, SOGO and ParknShop, to fresh markets, restaurants and taxis.