KUALA LUMPUR: Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet) and Ant Group have teamed up to enable travellers with Alipay+ supported e-wallets from eight countries to use PayNet's DuitNow QR in Malaysia.
Travellers using Alipay+ wallets from Alipay (China), AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR), HelloMoney by AUB (Philippines), Hipay (Mongolia), MPay (Macau SAR), Naver Pay (Japan), Toss Pay (South Korea), and TrueMoney (Thailand) will be able to make cashless payments at 1.8 million DuitNow QR touchpoints.
DuitNow QR users is expected to be accepted at Alipay+ global merchants from 2024 onwards.
The Alipay+ ,erchant ecosystem currently includes tens of millions merchants in more than 50 markets.
PayNet's DuitNow QR is a national QR standard that enables participating merchants to accept real-time payments from customers of partner banks and e-wallets in Malaysia and other related countries using a single, unified QR code.
"With our collaboration with Ant Grup, I am seeing a new Silk Route emerging, one that is powered by cross-border payment interoperabbility. Businesses in the DuitNow QR ecosystem can immediately access travellers from eight more countries in an efficient, seamless and secure way, bolstering trade and commerce.'
"Collectively, these linkages will connect economies that contribute over two-thirds to global gross domestic product (GDP) growthand home to over 60 per cent of the world's population whose media age is younger than the global average. At this rate we may very well see ASEAN+3 economic integration sooner than we think," PayNet group chief executive officer Farhan Ahmad, said.
At the launch of the collaboration today, he added will be no additional charge during payment.
Douglas Feagin, senior vice president of Ant Group and head of Alipay+ cross-border mobile payment services, said that a recent report commissioned by the group found that intra-Asian cross-border travel and payments will accelerate in the coming years, with average consumer spending nearly doubling from 2016 to 2025.