Ant International widens digital payment access across SE Asia

Insider Spotlight

• Southeast Asia remains a core growth market for inclusive digital payments
• SMEs lead adoption as interoperability and QR payments scale
• Cross-border connectivity boosts tourism, trade, and financial access
• AI-powered fintech tools lower costs and improve payment success
  
  

Improving access to digital payments across Southeast Asia is emerging as a defining priority for fintech players seeking to unlock inclusive growth in fragmented but fast-scaling digital economies.

Ant International said it supported more than two billion digital cross-border transactions in 2025 across its core emerging markets, with Southeast Asia playing a central role as mobile wallets, QR payments, and super apps reshape everyday commerce for consumers and small businesses.

Why it matters

Payment digitalisation remains uneven across the region, particularly for small and medium enterprises that form the backbone of Southeast Asia’s economies. 

Expanding access to affordable, interoperable digital payments allows small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to participate in cross-border trade, tourism, and platform-driven commerce without heavy upfront infrastructure costs.

Ant International said it now serves more than 150 million merchants globally, with 90 percent classified as SMEs. 

In Southeast Asia, local merchants increasingly accept multiple QR, mobile, and card-based payment methods through a single integration, reducing friction for both domestic and international customers.

Driving interoperabilityT

hrough Alipay+, Ant International connects more than 1.8 billion user accounts across 40 international payment partners to merchants in over 100 markets. 

In Southeast Asia, partnerships with national QR networks have enabled travelers to spend more when using their home wallets, delivering direct economic benefits to small merchants, especially in tourism-heavy markets.

SEA-based super apps such as GCash, DANA, TrueMoney, and TNG Digital continue to expand their ecosystems with support from Ant International, helping hundreds of millions of users transition from cash to digital payments while strengthening local fintech infrastructure.

Beyond payments

Access to payments is increasingly linked to access to credit, banking, and cross-border settlement. 

Ant International said its financing and banking solutions have helped millions of SMEs gain easier access to working capital and international markets, while AI-driven tools streamline payment integration and improve transaction success rates.

“In the world’s fastest growing emerging markets, real-world, trusted and scalable adoption of AI and other new technologies can unlock entirely new growth opportunities for businesses big and small,” Douglas Feagin, president of Ant International, said in a press release on Jan. 14, 2026. 

“It is time for fintech innovators to convert access into real growth momentum. We will work even harder to put AI-powered digital payments, financing, commerce and cross-border solutions on the ground for entrepreneurs and communities with ever lower cost and ever stronger safety and security guardrails.”

The bottom line

As Southeast Asia’s digital economy scales, widening access to secure, interoperable digital payments is becoming a critical lever for inclusive growth, helping SMEs move from local cash-based trade to globally connected commerce. —Vanessa Hidalgo | Ed: Corrie S. Narisma