KUALA LUMPUR: The country’s top two lenders — Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) and CIMB Bank Bhd — yesterday announced their partnership with China’s Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, to provide Alipay users travelling in Malaysia with a contactless payment service when they make purchases at selected merchants in Malaysia.
In a statement yesterday, Maybank said the new service, available from May, will see Alipay being accepted at Maybank card merchants such as Parkson, Royal Selangor, Duty Free Zone, Eraman and Genting.
Operated by Ant Financial, Alipay is a leading mobile payment platform and lifestyle app with 450 million users in China and beyond.
“As a leader in card payments, Maybank will now offer Alipay customers the added convenience and security of our comprehensive cashless payment channels, thereby expanding the geographical reach of their digital wallets and enhancing their travel experience in this country,” said Maybank group strategy officer Michael Foong in the statement.
He added that more merchants are currently being processed for enrolment into the programme to ensure that Alipay users can have greater payment convenience when in Malaysia.
“Given Maybank’s leading position in the Malaysian market, we believe we can provide Alipay customers even greater payment access throughout Malaysia, with our customers having greater peace of mind when transacting on Maybank’s card payment platforms which are quick and secure,” said Ant Financial senior vice-president Douglas Feagin.
Currently, Maybank is the leader in merchant sales volume in Malaysia with a 37% market share.
In a separate statement, CIMB Bank said it will act as the settlement and merchant acquirer bank to facilitate Alipay payments in Malaysia to enable Chinese visitors to pay for their transactions in yuan through a simple barcode-scanning method that they are used to in China.
CIMB Group Holdings Bhd group chief executive Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz said it targets the Alipay mobile wallet service to go live with the bank’s merchants by May this year, having received Bank Negara Malaysia’s approval just recently.
CIMB will be collaborating with Genting Malaysia Bhd, DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd, YTL Corp Bhd and Maxincome Resources Sdn Bhd, which operates the FamilyMart convenience store chain here, to be the pioneer merchants to accept Alipay mobile wallet payments in Malaysia.