Hey friends,

Happy Friday in advance! Welcome to the latest edition of our This Month in Chinese Fintech newsletter.

September was an exciting month for many Chinese fintechs, with a flurry of impressive product launches and partnerships that are sure to grab your attention!

Alrighty, without further ado, let's dive right into the updates!

Best regards,

Ning

👉 Please email me at ning@thisweekinfintech.com to discuss more.

Financing, Investment & Acquisition 

• Alibaba reportedly informed Turkey’s president of its intention to invest $2 billion in the country.
• Alibaba Group Holding decided to postpone the IPO of its grocery chain, Freshippo, in Hong Kong due to a weak valuation for consumer stocks.
• Citigroup is in discussions to sell its $4 billion Chinese retail wealth unit to HSBC.
• Ant Group is preparing to divest its $100 million investment in crypto venture firm A&T Capital.
• Ant Group has become the second-largest stakeholder of South Korea’s Toss Payments with about a 40% stake.
• GGV Capital plans to split off China business due to US political pressure, following a similar move by Sequoia in June. 

Product & Partnership Launches 

• Alipay has been making significant strides and experienced notable developments recently: 
  • Announced that four mobile wallets, including AlipayHK, Kakao Pay, Touch 'n Go eWallet, and Alipay, are now accepted in the Philippines.
  • Expanded its "Alipay+-in-China" Program by adding seven leading e-wallets and payment apps from Asia, including mPay, Hipay, Changi Pay, OCBC, Naver Pay, Toss Pay, and TrueMoney, enabling users to conveniently make mobile payments in mainland China through their respective home e-wallets.
  • Planned to expand in South Korea through a partnership with ZeroPay, to expand AliPay's payment acceptance for Chinese tourists in South Korea.
  • Partnered with PayNet in Malaysia to launch cross border, real time payments for Asian travelers visiting Malaysia.
  • Partnered with the Saudi Tourism Authority to introduce seamless mobile payment solutions for Asian tourists in Saudi Arabia, expanding Alipay+'s global coverage.
  • Partnered with Network International to enable the acceptance of multiple global e-wallets in the UAE.
  • Partnered with ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions to offer seamless payment acceptance in Australia, supporting multiple digital wallets through a single Alipay+ enabled terminal.
• Ant Group has launched its international blockchain brand ZAN. 
• Airwallex has partnered with Public to minimize FX costs for UK investors purchasing US equities.
• Citcon has partnered with Cash App Pay and Afterpay.
• UnionPay International has expanded its cross-border business, enabling 170 international wallets to be directly used at UnionPay merchants in China. Additionally, UnionPay International and RAKBANK have partnered to enable contactless mobile payments in the UAE, allowing RAKBANK merchants to accept UnionPay contactless payments through mobile wallets and contactless cards.
• Rongbao Payment has partnered with Wintranx to optimize risk control solutions for Visa and Mastercard payments. 
• Lianlian Global had two major partnership launches: 
  • They became Tiktok Shop’s official payment partner for all marketplaces, joining Payoneer. 
  • They became Walmart US’ official payment partnerWalmart US’ official payment partner. Previously, the only payment providers of Walmart’s were Payoneer and PingPong Payments. 

Other News 

• Tiktok Shop’s global expansion plans faced a setback in Indonesia as the regulator banned social media companies from handling direct payments for online purchases, a distinction that so far applies just to TikTok. Additionally, Tiktok Shop US has also raised concerns about product authenticity and data privacy.
• China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced its plan to establish standards for the Metaverse sector to address the challenges it faces. 
• Tencent Holdings has been fined one million yuan ($137,390.95) by China's cyberspace regulators for hosting illegal and obscene content.
• Alibaba Cloud’s CEO and the group's former CEO, Daniel Zhang, resigned, which came as a surprise to many. Zhang had planned to give the title of group CEO to Eddie Wu (Who is Eddie Wu?). 
• Ant Group has launched a financial large language model (LLM). 

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