Alipay helps small firms cut costs

Ant's Alipay app helped reduce about 6.8 billion yuan (HK$7.49 billion) operational costs for small and micro enterprises last year, says Ant's 2022 Sustainability Report released yesterday.

The affiliate of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba (9988) says it has provided inclusive payment and financial services to 86 million enterprises and operators of small and micro sizes.

The online payments giant also reported that the merchants saw their transactions via mini-programs grow 49 percent on average after Alipay offered the services to 3.95 million merchants by the end of last year.

Meanwhile, Ant's expenses in research and development reached 20.5 billion yuan, more than double from three years ago.

Ant has been releasing annual sustainability reports since 2017. This is the first report after the company proposed new goals in environmental and social governance last year.

Staff reporter