BEIJING (April 19): Ant Financial, the payment affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, has acquired Singapore-based payment service helloPay Group, part of the Chinese firm's drive to boost its Alipay brand and presence in South-east Asia.

helloPay is the payment subsidiary of e-commerce firm Lazada Group, which is majority-owned by Alibaba after a US$1 billion ($1.4 billion) deal in 2016, and will be re-branded as Alipay in relevant markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, Ant said in a statement on Wednesday.

The re-branded service will remain independent of Alipay's existing app, which has 450 million users in China and is the country's most popular mobile payment app. Ant did not disclose financial terms of the helloPay deal.

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