Alibaba's Ant On Hiring Spree In Singapore As It Faces Regulatory Headwinds In China

The financial technology giant Ant Group — an affiliate company of the Chinese Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA — is expanding in Singapore as it faces regulatory challenges in its home country.

What Happened: The fintech giant has posted around 20 job openings for Singapore on its LinkedIn page as it doubles down on expansion in the Southeast Asia country.

See Also: Alibaba Is Trading 2.8% Higher in Hong Kong Today

According to SCMP sources, this comes as one of the biggest Singapore hiring sprees for the company, which currently employs about 300 workers in the city-state to run its Southeast Asian businesses.

“Hiring and developing talent is a core part of Ant Group’s people strategy as we strengthen our capabilities in Southeast Asia and support individuals and businesses, especially SMEs, to ride the region’s wave of the digital economy,” SCMP quoted a company representative.

Why It Matters: This came at a time when the company is planning to launch the Singapore digital bank. The advertised positions range from credit management to security engineering and marketing to legal counsel for the forthcoming digital bank.

The company appointed Jia Hang — a former UnionPay executive who joined Ant in 2015 — as its first regional head for Southeast Asia in March. It also acquired a majority stake in Singapore-based payments platform 2C2P last month.

Price Action: According to the data from Benzinga Pro, Alibaba shares traded 2.7% higher at $83.30 in the premarket session on Friday.