BEIJING (Reuters) – Ant Financial, an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, will open its Alipay mobile app platform to 40 million service providers in China over the next three years and help them digitize their offerings, it said on Tuesday.
The move is a shift in positioning for Alipay, which has traditionally focused on providing financial services.
“Building a one-stop digital lifestyle platform not only creates immense value for our users, it will also play an essential role in accelerating the digital transformation of the service industry and unlocking more growth opportunities,” Ant’s Chief Executive Simon Hu said in an e-mailed statement.
(Reporting by Yingzhi Yang in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
