Ant International, the overseas affiliate of Chinese fintech group Ant Group, has raised about $1.2 billion in a fresh equity round to fund its expansion into markets beyond its home turf.
The company confirmed the raise, describing it as capital to speed up international growth and deepen its work in merchant payments, account management, and financial services for businesses.
The Singapore-based business was carved out of Jack Ma’s Ant Group in 2024 to run independently, and it now houses the group’s payments ambitions outside China, where domestic rivals are racing to build agentic commerce tools and stitch together cross-border payments.
Existing backers Ant Group and Alibaba Group took part in the round, alongside several international institutional investors whose names were not disclosed.
The company carried a valuation of roughly $10 billion going into the raise, a figure Ant International itself did not confirm.
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The money is earmarked for the four units that make up the business. Alipay+ connects mobile wallets to merchants across borders, Antom handles merchant acquiring, WorldFirst offers accounts and foreign exchange for online sellers, and Bettr provides lending, together reaching more than 150 million merchants and around 2 billion user accounts across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.
That footprint explains the logic of the raise. Ant International sells itself less as a consumer wallet than as the plumbing beneath global trade, moving money for small exporters, marketplaces, and travellers who increasingly pay with an app rather than a card.
Building that plumbing across borders is capital-intensive, which is part of why the company keeps returning to investors rather than leaning on its parent alone.
The timing sits within a busy stretch for payments infrastructure. Mastercard has spent heavily to fold stablecoin firms into its network, while Nuvei’s purchase of Payoneer showed how quickly acquirers are consolidating to take on Stripe.
Ant International is pitching itself into the same contest, betting that merchants want one provider able to settle across dozens of currencies and wallets.
There is history behind the caution over Ant’s ambitions. Chinese regulators halted Ant Group’s record-breaking initial public offering in 2020, forcing a lengthy restructuring and prompting Jack Ma to give up control of the parent.
Spinning out the international arm gave the overseas business room to raise money and strike partnerships without the regulatory weight that sits on the mainland operation.
It also let Alibaba and Ant Group treat foreign payments as a separate growth story from the tightly policed Chinese market.
Whether this round is a stepping stone to a public listing is the open question. Bloomberg reported in June that Ant International had been sounding out investors for about $1 billion, and analysts have speculated that a Hong Kong flotation could follow, though the company has not committed to a timeline.
For now, the fresh capital is framed as fuel for growth and product development rather than any near-term IPO. Alibaba’s participation, alongside Ant Group’s, suggests the two giants still see overseas payments as a rare avenue for expansion as competition at home tightens.
Alibaba retains a large indirect interest in the Ant empire and has spent years reshaping its holdings, so its willingness to write another cheque is a signal in itself.
For merchants and rival fintechs, the practical takeaway is scale. A better-funded Ant International can subsidise pricing, open new corridors, and court the banks and card networks it needs to move money at volume, pressure that Western payment firms are likely to feel in Asia and the Gulf in particular.
What comes next is execution. Ant International has the money, the backers, and a sprawling network, but converting 2 billion accounts and 150 million merchants into durable, profitable payment flows is a harder task than announcing a raise, and one the company will now be judged against.
