Ant International Gains Strong Momentum for Global Expansion

Global financial technology company Ant International has reorganised its operations into four divisions whilst expanding its artificial intelligence capabilities across Asian markets.

The Singapore-headquartered firm, which processes cross-border payments and provides financial technology infrastructure to merchants and consumers, has structured its operations around Alipay+, Antom, WorldFirst and a new embedded finance division.

Alipay+ expansion drives cross-border payment growth

The Alipay+ division, which provides technological infrastructure for mobile payments and digital wallets, has expanded its merchant network to 90 million businesses across 66 markets. The platform connects these merchants to 1.6 billion user accounts through partnerships with 35 payment providers, including electronic wallets, banking applications and buy-now-pay-later services.

The division has integrated with national Quick Response (QR) code payment systems - machine-readable barcodes that enable instant payments - across six Asian markets including Singapore's SGQR and Malaysia's PayNet. Cross-border transaction volumes through its partner network have increased threefold in 2024, excluding volumes from Chinese payment application Alipay.

Ant International's merchant services show technical innovation

Antom, the company's merchant payment processing division, has recorded a doubling of payment volume between January and November 2024 compared to the previous year. The unit's card processing volume has increased tenfold year-on-year.

The division has launched Antom Copilot, a system that reduces payment integration time from ten days to minutes. Its new EasySafePay product streamlines digital wallet payments by eliminating application switching whilst protecting against unauthorised account access.

The company's WorldFirst unit, a cross-border payments platform acquired in 2019, has processed US$100bn in annual payment volume in 2024, representing a fourfold increase from 2020. The division has handled more than US$300bn in payments for one million small and medium-sized enterprises globally.

New technology division targets financial inclusion

Ant International's embedded finance division utilises artificial intelligence and blockchain technology - a decentralised digital ledger system - to provide foreign exchange, treasury management and lending services to customers across its other units.

The division has developed a Time-Series Transformer artificial intelligence model for foreign exchange prediction, which forecasts currency requirements hourly with 90 per cent accuracy. This technology aims to reduce treasury management costs for multinational merchants in the airline and e-commerce sectors.

Through ANEXT Bank, its Singapore digital banking subsidiary, Ant International has launched bettr, a credit service that has reached 11 million customers in Bangladesh and Indonesia. The service provides uncollateralised loans to first-time borrowers using artificial intelligence-driven credit ratings.

"2024 has been a transformative year for Ant International," says Peng Yang, Chief Executive Officer of Ant International. "We are committed to advance inclusive growth through AI-powered innovation and collaboration on cross-border travel, trade, commerce and inclusive finance."

The blockchain settlement network now processes more than one-third of Ant International's volume through continuous real-time settlement. Total loans under management across its small and medium enterprise financing services have doubled in 2024 compared to 2023.

"In 2025, we will continue to be laser-focused on supporting SMEs across borders with AI-powered innovative and trusted payment, digitalisation, and inclusive financing solutions through expanded public- and private-sector collaboration," Yang says.

Make sure you check out the latest industry news and insights at Business Chief and be part of the conversation at our global conference series, Sustainability LIVE.

Discover all our upcoming events and secure your tickets today.

Business Chief is a BizClik brand