Asia Tech Wire (July 15) -- Chinese fintech giant Ant Group has partnered with BNP Paribas for its cross-border payments business.

Douglas Feagin, president of Ant International, and Pierre Fersztand, global head of cash management, payments, trade solutions and factoring at BNP Paribas, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on July 3, 2024 in Zurich.

The two parties agreed to develop a number of important programs, including cooperation on digital payments and other businesses.

BNP Paribas will work with Alipay+, the cross-border mobile payment operated by Ant International, to enable merchants in Europe using BNP Paribas' acquiring services to accept payments through Alipay+.

The two sides also agreed to work together to strengthen the Ant Group's cross-border payment subsidiary WorldFirst's participation in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) scheme.

In addition, BNP Paribas will work with Ant International to explore innovations in tokenized deposits for global funds management through the latter's Whale platform to improve the efficiency of global funds settlement.