KUALA LUMPUR, September 27 – Travelers to Malaysia and Malaysian residents traveling abroad will soon experience seamless digital payments, thanks to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) recently signed between Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet) and Ant Group, the operator of Alipay+, a global cross-border digital payments and marketing solutions platform. By the end of this year, users of five prominent Asian e-wallets, including AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR), GCash (Philippines), Kakao Pay (South Korea), and TrueMoney (Thailand), will be able to make cashless payments when traveling to Malaysia by scanning DuitNow QR.
Malaysia’s National QR Standard operated by PayNet. Additional e-wallets are expected to join this initiative in the coming months. The partnership aims to enable all Malaysian e-wallets supported by PayNet to be accepted by Alipay+ merchants globally by 2024. Beyond payments, Ant Group and PayNet will collaborate on joint digital marketing efforts to enhance businesses’ visibility within users’ e-wallets. Gary Yeoh, Chief Commercial Officer of PayNet, emphasized the significance of this partnership, especially in the context of the resumed overseas travel and increasing digital payment expectations of consumers and merchants.
He noted that Malaysia’s popularity as a destination for Asian tourists, coupled with this collaboration, is likely to lead to higher trade growth between the two nations. Dr. Cherry Huang, General Manager of Alipay+ Offline Merchant Services, Ant Group, stated that the collaboration aims to bring local businesses and international visitors closer together, offering convenience to tourists and greater opportunities for Malaysian businesses. Travelers today expect simplified, less complex, and hassle-free experiences, and Alipay+ aims to achieve this through local partnerships, providing personalized, seamless, and borderless experiences.
Alipay+ is a suite of global cross-border digital payment and marketing solutions designed to enable businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, to process various mobile payment methods and reach over 1 billion regional and global consumers through a single integration. Apart from Malaysia, Alipay+ is widely accepted in destinations including mainland China, Macao SAR, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. This collaboration adds to PayNet’s successful cross-border collaborations in Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore, connecting a significant portion of digital payment customers in ASEAN, one of the world’s most active digital payments markets.
