I came across an Bloomberg interview with Jack Ma about Alibaba. Pretty much firing a salvo across the broad side of most global payment providers, despite what he said.
Looking into Alibaba’s payments platform, Alipay, I was not surprised to find it has bought out HelloPay in Singapore. But what caught my eye was the blurb at the bottom of the homepage.
“Consumer advisory: Alipay Singapore Investment Holding Pte. Ltd., the holder of Alipay’s stored value facility, does not require the approval of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Consumers (users) are advised to read the Terms and Conditions carefully.” – Alibaba Singapore
Looking into this, I found the formation of a National Payment Council on the MAS’ website on 2 Aug 2017 (here). That’s the reason why there’s no regulation on such payment platforms in Singapore yet. (it’s forming its forming…)