Ant International Announces Sustainability Framework, Serving 100 mn Merchants to Advance Inclusive Growth in Re-globalisation

Ant International, a leading global digital payment, digitisation and financial technology provider, today announced its Sustainability Framework in its first independent Sustainability Report.  

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Ant International announces Sustainability Framework in its Inaugural Sustainability Report

A New Chapter of Growth with New Mission and Vision at a Critical Moment  

2024 is a transformative year for Ant International, which became independent after a reorganisation of Ant Group. With headquarters in Singapore and over 30 offices around the world, Ant International provides cross-border digital payment, commerce and finance solutions to merchants and financial institutions, connecting 100 million+ merchants to global consumers across its 4 business units:  

• global e-wallet gateway service (Alipay+),
• merchant payment service (Antom),
• cross-border business account service (WorldFirst), and
• embedded finance services including treasury management and credit solutions (Bettr).

In its new corporate identity, Ant International's mission is tomake it easy to do business anywhere, bringing small and beautiful changes to the world. Its vision is be the most innovative and trusted digital partner to bring inclusive growth to all.  

The management reiterated that in the face of global economic turbulence, de-globalisation threats, and new risks of digital divide, tech companies need to enhance, not weaken their social commitments with concrete action. “The call for action on the digital tech community has never been so urgent: we need to take action to ensure innovation works for the many, not the few, so we can build a truly inclusive and sustainable global economy for the next generation,” said Eric Jing, Chairman of Ant International, in his opening message.  

Yang Peng, Chief Executive Officer, and Douglas Feagin, President of Ant International, said, “We firmly believe that through our sustainability and business efforts, coupled with practical technological innovation, we can actively practice and promote a new, more inclusive, and broader ‘re-globalisation’.”  

6T Principle Focuses on SMEs for Inclusive Growth and Re-globalising Commerce  

The Sustainability Framework is anchored on an integration of social value and business value creation across its 6T Sustainability Areas. The Report shared highlights as of 2024 in these areas:  

• to enable global connections in Travel;
• to empower global commerce in Trade;
• to enable the underserved to Thrive;
• to harness Technology to drive open innovation;
• to nurture digital Talent to support local growth;
• to strengthen digital Trust for a resilient digital ecosystem.

Payment: Promoting Global Connectivity with Travel and Trade  

• In travel, Alipay+ has enabled inclusive and affordable payment options globally, connecting more than 1.7 billion user accounts via partnerships with 36 e-wallets and 6 national QR schemes. Over 90% of offline Alipay+ merchants are SMEs.
• In trade, WorldFirst has enabled over 1.2 million SMEs to sell their products and services across more than 200 markets, and processed payments of cumulative transaction value of around USD 100 billion in 100+ currencies in 2024.
• In digital commerce, AI-enabled solutions help merchants reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance security. Antom Copilot, the AI payment assistant, cuts the time required for payment integration by 90%.

Beyond Payment: Democratising Technology for SMEs to Thrive  

• With its Wallet Tech capabilities, Ant International has helped accelerate sustainable digital economic growth for 31 partners across 23 markets. Today, the company focuses on developing AI-powered fintech solutions to enhance growth and security for merchants and fintech partners.

In the fast-growing Embedded Finance unit,  

• Falcon, a ground-breaking Time-Series Transformer (TST) FX Model, helps SMEs cope with cross-border liquidity volatility more effectively with an hourly demand prediction accuracy of over 90%.
• In 2024, AI-powered Credit Tech solutions, ANEXT Bank and Ant Bank (Hong Kong) helped extend lending and other inclusive financial services to over 15 millionusers in emerging markets, mostly from the SME community.

Collaboration on Trust and Talent to Drive Sustainable Growth  

Ant International works to build a trust-based and future-ready digital ecosystem in collaboration with regulators, international organisations and over 1,000 financial institutions. The company invests in 2 pillars of Trust: a comprehensive, robust compliance structure, and AI-security capabilities and solutions. The company has started to share its trusted AI capabilities, such as anti-deepfake expertise, with the broader community.  

Such collaboration expands to other community and global initiatives, ranging from MSME sustainability credentials and financing innovations, to joint research efforts on advancing privacy-enhancing technology to strengthen digital trust. The 10x1000 Tech for Inclusion Programme, now in its 7^th year, has provided training on fintech and digital innovation to 7,157 talents across 110 countries and regions.  

Earlier at the Point Zero Forum in Zurich in May 2025, global leaders and policymakers joined the soft launch event of Ant International’s inaugural Sustainability Report. Mr. Sing Chiong Leong, Deputy Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), was the guest of honour and delivered opening remarks at the event.  

Ms. Nan Li Collins, Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative, who joined the event as a keynote speaker, resonated with Ant International’s commitment to bring equal access and growth opportunities for SMEs through trade. “While the digital economy is booming, developing countries still face a critical gap in essential infrastructure investment - a challenge we must address to ensure no one is left behind in the global transition to sustainable growth.”  

Chen Leiming, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant International, also commented, “Sustainability must be inclusive to be effective. At Ant International, by integrating sustainability into how we innovate, operate and grow, we ensure that every business outcome is also a step towards long-term societal progress.”  

About Ant International  

With headquarters in Singapore and main operations across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, Ant International is a leading global digital payment, digitisation and financial technology provider. Through collaboration across the private and public sectors, our unified techfin platform supports financial institutions and merchants of all sizes to achieve inclusive growth through a comprehensive range of cutting-edge digital payment and financial services solutions. To learn more, please visit https://www.ant-intl.com/  

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