Asia

Geoswift has launched an inbound P2P money transfer service in China — offering the flip side of its core services supporting tuition and other corporate payments for Chinese students, workers and tourists who are outside of their home country.

Billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial is lifting its fundraising target to more than $12 billion by bringing in existing Chinese shareholders in a yuan-denominated financing round, people familiar with the matter said.

As consumers spend more time interacting over social media and messaging platforms, those providers are making sure that they can also make payments related to any topic of conversation. But the arrival of Apple Pay Cash is complicating the market.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is leading the purchase of 10 percent of Chinese delivery service ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. for $1.38 billion, a deal that’ll augment the e-commerce giant’s ability to ship packages around the globe.

Facebook Inc. is set to offer its WhatsApp payment services to the whole of India as early as next week in an attempt to win market share, even though its partners aren’t all ready, said people familiar with the matter.

Despite Canada's high penetration of contactless POS terminals and consumer affinity for the technology, the country has lagged behind nations such as the U.K. and Singapore in contactless payments. That is set to change as Canada's transit schemes launch contactless open-payment systems.

Bank of Hawaii will serve Japanese citizens looking to conduct business in the United States.

Ant Financial, the Chinese payments giant controlled by Jack Ma, is expected to close a fundraising of at least $10 billion in the next few days, attracting Carlyle Group and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board as first-time investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

China hasn't exactly opened its arms wide to embrace U.S. payments companies, but the nation has gradually become more accepting of the foreign payments businesses that view its tech-savvy population as a lucrative market.

Across the globe, many different populations have distinct reasons for being unbanked. To reach these audiences, mainstream financial companies are discovering approaches that wouldn't be possible in the U.S.