Ant Financial Services has unveiled plans of much deeper integration of its mobile payment app Alipay with service providers across China. The Chinese firm is aiming to digitally entrench its popular mobile payment platform with over 40 million businesses across different industries. The company believes that this should give it an edge over its rivals WeChat and Meituan Dianping.
The ambitious goal is part of the company's three-year plan to transform Alipay into China's main online gateway for industries such as retail, transport, food, beverage, medical services, travel, hotels, and tourism. With the use of its technology, Ant Financial hopes to increase efficiency and enhance operations in the aforementioned industries by 2030.
The first part of the plan will involve forming new partnerships with up to 50,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) to help service providers integrate and adopt Ant Financial's online platform to their existing operations. This will include the development of custom software to aid the utilization of technologies and services such as online payments, fund management, customer tracking, engagement, anti-fraud systems, and smart marketing.
In line with this, the company is currently working with different developers for the creation of additional mini-programs that can be integrated into the Alipay platform. These lightweight apps will allow users to access services from third-party providers over the same platform. Since 2018, the company has been launching different mini-programs that integrate its other services to Alipay. This included the integration of Alibaba's Tmall e-commerce services and its location-based service AutoNavi.
Ant Financial CEO, Simon Hu, mentioned at the Alipay Partner Conference in Hangzhou on Tuesday that China's retail and services sector is still in the early stages of digital transformation. This means that the sector still offers a huge untapped potential, particularly for the company and its technology.
Amid the economic slowdown in China, Ant Financial is pushing to expand its ecosystem to include more industry partners. The completion of the plan has gained more urgency over the past couple of months amid the spread of the viral epidemic. He mentioned that the use of its digital technology will hopefully help service providers respond to the crisis and function well in the rapidly changing market environment.
Hu believes that in the coming years, Alipay could become a one-stop digital lifestyle platform for all users and service providers. The company also believes that its platform will be playing a vital role in accelerating China's digital transformation, which will lead to further economic growth for the nation.
