Alipay to be launched, and used, in Malaysia

Malaysian merchants are set to accept the use of Alipay, China's indigenous mobile wallet, in stores around the country this month, as announced by parent company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd on Friday.

Six local banks have received regulatory approval from the Malaysian Central Bank to process Alipay-enabled settlements, according to a company statement. Alipay will also be scheduled to be accepted as a payment option across the Southeast Asian nation by 2018.

The new announcement, into the Malaysian retail market, marked the latest international push of the Ant Financial Services Group, Alibaba's payment affiliate and owner of Alipay, which has invested in a handful of foreign payment firms, including India's Paytm and Thailand's Acsend Money. Alipay has, so far, been widely accepted in 70 countries, including the United States and Japan.

The overseas stride has also been creating synergies for Alibaba, whose e-commerce business, logistics networks and cloud computing services have all made inroads in Southeast Asia.

For instance, representatives of Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba, recently said the company would establish a data center in Malaysia later this year, providing local and regional enterprises with scalable, and cost-effective, cloud capabilities. It was slated to become the first global public cloud platform in the country.

During the time it was announced, on Friday, representatives of Alibaba also revealed the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, the country's digital economy development agency, and the Hangzhou Municipal government to connect the first round of e-hubs in China and Malaysia.

The announcement was under the auspices of the Electronic World Trade Platform, a mechanism advocated by the Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, to facilitate global trading for notably small and medium-sized enterprises through infrastructure building.