Alibaba’s affiliate in mobile money adds Philippines to its portfolio

Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, manages 58 percent of all online transactions happening in China through its Alipay service, has added Philippines to its expanding mobile money portfolio. It’s the latest deal in Ant’s ambitious rollup of stakes in mobile money and other fintech providers, including MoneyGram in the U.S., Ascend Money in Thailand, Kakao in Korea, Paytm in India and M-Daq in Singapore.

The Chinese fintech giant is taking a substantial minority interest in Mynt, the mobile payments platform of Global Telecom, a major mobile operator in the Philippines.