Jack Ma's Ant Financial has invested heavily in Kakao Pay, an unlaunched mobile payment service from the South Korean tech giant Kakao. The investment is reported to be worth 200 million US dollars, and comes shortly before Kakao's mobile wallet is set to launch. Ant Financial themselves were formerly known as Alipay, and still run and develop it as the largest digital wallet in China. Kakao Pay will be launched as a subsidiary of KakaoTalk, and will allow digital payments to be made both online and within high-street stores in South Korea. As well as input from the extremely successful Alipay, which has 450 million active users, Kakao Pay will also have the advantage of being initially launched in South Korea. The country currently has the highest smartphone ownership in the world, with just under 90% of the population owning the devices. Ant Financial said in a statement that it will offer a “wide range of digital financial services” through the app.
