Cross border payments

The company already has a domestic market for transfers and other payment services, and is looking to serve the international needs of that audience.

In a white paper published Thursday morning, the consulting firm Federal Financial Analytics warns that President Trump’s protectionist attitudes toward the manufacturing and industrial sectors may usher in a new era of uncertainty for the financial services industry.

Ant Financial, the parent of China’s largest online payment service, is seeking to raise less than $3 billion by issuing debt to fund its acquisitions, people familiar with the matter said.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) has introduced real-time payments leveraging blockchain technology from Ripple, providing a new approach for the bank’s UAE-based customers to send and receive payments across borders.

To date, Ant's Alipay has been comparable to PayPal, seldom venturing beyond payments. The financial products Alipay plans to pursue as it enters new markets put it more firmly in direct competition with mainstream banks.

Alipay's deal to buy MoneyGram for $880 million may be the centerpiece of its strategy to expand beyond China's borders, but it's not its first move in recent months. The Alibaba payments affiliate has already extended its reach in several other ways.

The U.S.-to-China payments corridor is one of the biggest in the world, according to the most recent World Bank data. It is dwarfed only by the U.S.-to-Mexico corridor, which the Trump campaign targeted as part of its border wall plan.

Ant Financial, the company that operates Alipay, is buying MoneyGram for $880 million, its boldest move yet in a series of partnerships and investments that signal an international ambition.

President Donald Trump's signing of an executive order Wednesday to push forward with plans for a "security wall" between the U.S. and Mexico has strong implications for how the plan will affect cross-border payments.

UnionPay's collaboration with United Airlines and Planet Payment is the latest salvo in a race among Chinese companies to cater to overseas travelers.