Alibaba Affiliate Becomes Instrumental In South Korea's Digital Wallet Push

Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA fintech affiliate Ant Group promised to help four Asian e-wallets expand into South Korea with its cross-border payment service Alipay+, as travel restrictions ease across Asia.
Now, e-wallet consumers using Alipay+ like the Philippines' GCash, Malaysia's Touch'n Go, Thailand's TrueMoney, and AlipayHK can pay at over 120,000 merchants using their local mobile payments apps when traveling in South Korea, Reuters reports.
The first batch of available merchants will include taxis, duty-free shops, and convenience stores.
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Alipay+ provides services and technology tools to global merchants and e-wallets.
South Korea's prepaid card market will likely grow at a CAGR of 7.9% between 2022-26, reaching $33.27 billion.
Recently, South Korea penalized Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google 69.2 billion won ($50 million) and Meta Platforms Inc META 30.8 billion won ($22 million) for privacy law violations.
The companies failed to inform service users and obtain prior consent when collecting and analyzing behavioral information for customized advertisements.
Price Action: BABA shares traded higher by 1.26% at $79.79 in the premarket on the last check Monday.