This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 6, 2017 - November 12, 2017

ALIBABA Group has no plans to list its fintech affiliate Ant Financial Services Group in the next two years, according to the group’s founder Jack Ma.

At a press conference after the launch of the KLIA Aeropolis Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) in Sepang last Friday, Ma said his team will only think about the plan at least two years later as they are busy with the existing fintech opportunities available in the market.

“For Ant Financial Services Group to go public, we don’t have a timeline yet and, of course, we won’t know whether it will be in China, Hong Kong or the US. We really haven’t thought about it — whether it will happen in the next 12 or 18 months — because there is such a huge opportunity for fintech now.”

Ant Financial runs the Alipay mobile payment platform. Its initial public offering has been hotly anticipated, with earlier reports saying that it would be delayed until the first half of 2019.

“For Lazada, we are doing very well, but we will continue to invest in technology in Lazada, building up its infrastructure in Southeast Asia. Today, we are helping small businesses in Malaysia not only sell things to China but also in Southeast Asia and to Russia, Europe and the US,” Ma remarked.

Alibaba has an 83% stake in online retailer and e-grocer Lazada, which has operations in six Southeast Asian countries.

On Alibaba’s presence in Malaysia, Ma said it is not politically-driven. Thus, he is unfazed by any uncertainties after the upcoming general election.

“I think helping small businesses and young people is universal … any government will support these [initiatives], so we think it would be great if the political situation were good. [But] it is okay even if it were bad — we will continue to support small businesses. So, we will be in the country, where young people need us,” he explained.

Alibaba’s presence in Malaysia is not primarily profit-driven either. It aims to help local small businesses go global, which is a part of the group’s globalisation strategy.

“Our strategy is not to globalise Alibaba’s business. [Instead,] we want to globalise e-commerce. We go to other countries not to do business locally but to enable local businesses to do business locally and globally. This is what differentiates us from other companies,” Ma said.

He advises small businesses today to make full use of the internet for services because of its cost-effectiveness.

“Most of them (online services) are free. Even if there is a charge, it is very low. [This is] not like a few years ago [when] only big companies could afford all the good technology. The best way to deal with technology disruption is just to embrace it, try to use it, and my suggestion is, try to use free technology first,” Ma said.

On DFTZ, he described it as a “successful first step” in helping small businesses in Malaysia.

“Today, we signed the agreements at an airport for this logistics centre. The next thing is, we are thinking of bringing in cloud computing — we want to give the most cost-effective cloud computing to every small businesses here. We also want to do training courses. We want to work with the Ministry of Education and Lazada to train entrepreneurs on how to build a business online.”

According to Ma, his team is planning to implement a “Malaysia Week” event — similar to the Singles’ Day event — on Alibaba’s e-commerce platform to promote Malaysian products.

“DFTZ has the first move. It also has the government’s support. I think that it is going to play a very important role in this part of the world. We will make it very successful. We think that the Malaysian government is making a huge effort in supporting small businesses. I think a year later, you will see a huge difference,” he said.

Ma sees DFTZ as a hub that transfers millions of packages around the world in the future.

“There are a lot of things in the pipeline. The first move is a success now and we hope to make progress every quarter, and achieve milestones every year,” he said.

DFTZ is an e-hub established by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation and Alibaba.

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