Ant International has raised about $1.2bn (£930m) in a Series A funding round as the Singapore-based fintech arm of Ant Group accelerates its global expansion and investment in artificial intelligence and blockchain-based payment infrastructure.
The fundraising – backed by parent Ant Group, Alibaba and other existing shareholders alongside several unnamed global investment institutions – cements Ant International as the core of Ant Group’s overseas business, following a sweeping corporate restructuring.
Chinese financial outlet Yicai reported that the fresh capital will be used to grow Ant International’s presence in overseas markets, deepen its AI capabilities and broaden its suite of cross-border financial services for merchants and consumers.
Global growth drive
Ant International has quietly become one of the fastest-growing parts of Jack Ma-linked Ant Group as the company pivots more aggressively outside mainland China.
Bloomberg reported in June that Ant International generated an estimated $3.7bn in revenue in 2025, up about 25% year-on-year, with the business contributing roughly one-tenth of Ant Group’s total revenue but outpacing several domestic units in growth.
The company now serves markets across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America from its base in Singapore, supported by innovation, settlement and operations centres in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
Ant International says its network links more than 150 million merchants to over two billion consumer accounts worldwide, largely through partnerships with local digital wallets and payment providers.
Restructuring and leadership
The latest funding round comes after Ant Group carved its operations into independently governed units as it adapts to shifting regulatory demands and international ambitions.
On 19 March 2024, Ant Group chairman Eric Jing announced that Ant International, database business OceanBase and Ant Digital had each established their own boards of directors and would operate independently in the market.
Under the current leadership structure, Jing serves as chairman of Ant International, with Yang Peng as chief executive officer and Douglas Feagin as president.
Speaking previously at the Singapore FinTech Festival, Eric Jing said artificial intelligence and tokenised settlement technologies could make financial services more inclusive and widely available – signalling the technologies the company is prioritising as it scales abroad.
Focus on cross-border payments
A central pillar of Ant International’s strategy is cross-border payments, built largely around its Alipay+ network.
The company says Alipay+ now operates in more than 100 markets, enabling consumers to pay using their existing local digital wallets while merchants receive funds through domestic payment systems, reducing friction at checkout and currency conversion costs.
Ant International’s operations are organised into four main business lines:
– Alipay+, a cross-border digital payments and marketing platform
– Antom, a merchant payments platform
– WorldFirst, a provider of cross-border financial services for businesses
– Bettr, which develops AI-driven treasury management and fintech products for enterprises
Blockchain at scale
Supporting this global payments footprint is Whale, Ant International’s blockchain platform, which underpins a significant share of its settlement volumes.
According to company data cited by Bloomberg, Ant International processed more than $1tn in global transactions in 2024, with around one-third of those payments settled over blockchain infrastructure rather than traditional banking rails.
The firm has also extended its blockchain capabilities into corporate treasury functions. Past collaborations with Standard Chartered have included blockchain-based liquidity transfers in Singapore dollars, following earlier Hong Kong dollar settlement trials under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Ensemble Sandbox for tokenisation.
Move into regulated digital assets
Ant International is increasingly weaving regulated digital assets into its payments stack.
Earlier this year, the company integrated Circle’s USDC stablecoin into parts of its cross-border settlement network, allowing selected transactions to be settled on blockchain rather than relying solely on correspondent banking systems.
Regulated stablecoins are expected to form another plank of its global strategy. Bloomberg reported in June 2025 that Ant International intends to apply for stablecoin issuer licences in Hong Kong, Singapore and Luxembourg.
A company spokesperson confirmed at the time that Ant International would seek a fiat-referenced stablecoin issuer licence in Hong Kong once the city’s Stablecoins Ordinance takes effect, with applications in Singapore and Luxembourg to follow.
AI and fintech expansion
Yicai reported that proceeds from the $1.2bn funding round will be channelled into scaling Ant International’s AI capabilities, expanding its range of “inclusive” fintech services and reinforcing its cross-border payments and global account offerings for businesses.
While the identities of the new international investors have not been disclosed, the sizeable fundraising underscores sustained investor confidence in the company’s bid to build a dominant position in digital payments and next-generation financial infrastructure beyond China.
