Ant Financial Services Group, a unit of Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group, is investing in a unit of Globe Telecom Inc. to upgrade payment services in the Philippines.
Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. (Mynt), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Globe Capital Venture Holdings under Globe Telecom and Ayala Corp., signed a strategic partnership with Ant Financial Services Group.
Ant Financial, parent company of Alipay, and Ayala Corp. signed definitive documents to enter into an investment via subscription to new shares in Mynt, which operates GCash and Fuse Lending.
GCash is a micropayment service which can be used to buy prepaid load, pay bills, send money, make donations, shop online and purchase goods without the need for cash.
Fuse Lending offers personal and business loans to unbanked and underserved Filipinos through the use of mobile technology, alternative data, and innovative credit scoring methods.
Subject to the closing of the transaction, Ant Financial, will own a substantial minority interest in Mynt while Ayala Corp. will acquire a minority interest. GCVHI will hold the remaining equity interest.
The fresh capital infusion will help Mynt achieve its vision of becoming a world-class online and offline payment provider as well as scale up its mobile wallet services and quickly expand its digital financial services.
The deal represents Ant Financial’s first-ever investment in the Philippines and demonstrates the company’s confidence in Mynt and its management team to upgrade digital financial services in the region.
With this partnership, Ant Financial, whose suite of digital financial services includes Alipay, will share with Mynt its know-how in using technology to provide equal access to financial services.
“A world-leading digital financial services provider has decided to partner with us. We are confident that having a strategic partner for Mynt will help fulfill our mission of providing financial services in a non-traditional manner that will benefit the majority of our population who are unbanked,” said Globe president and chief executive Ernest Cu.
“With this partnership, we are set to democratize financial services in the Philippines,” Cu said.
Eric Jing, chief executive of Ant Financial said, he was looking forward to “working with Mynt’s innovative management team to provide simple, secure, low-cost and accessible digital financial services to unserved and underserved individuals and small and micro enterprises in the Philippines, thus helping individuals to live a better life and helping SMEs to grow and create more jobs.”
Jing said Ant Financial was committed to building an open, technology-based ecosystem with its partners.
“We are happy to be part of Mynt and capture the exciting opportunities in financial technology,” said Ayala Corp. chairman and chief executive Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala.
