SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - Chinese fintech giant Ant Group has appointed payments veteran Jia Hang as its new regional general manager for South-east Asia, who is based in Singapore.

The newly created role is part of Ant's strategy to target small and medium-sized enterprises in the region with fintech services, such as its cross-border payments solution Alipay+. The appointment could indicate that Ant is ramping up growth outside of China, as it restructures in compliance with Chinese regulators.

The company has been an investor and a business partner to several fintechs across South-east Asia since 2016. It has stakes in regional e-wallet operators Ascend Money (Thailand), eMonkey (Vietnam), TNG Digital (Malaysia), Dana (Indonesia) and GCash (The Philippines).

Mr Jia has over two decades of experience in fintech and served in Ant's international operations since 2015. He most recently oversaw WorldFirst, a British payments group that Ant agreed to acquire in 2019 as part of its expansion in the West. In that role, Mr Jia led the payments solution team to support global e-commerce platforms.

In a press statement on Wednesday (March 23), Mr Jia said that Ant wants to be right where its customers are and that he looks forward to nurturing local tech talent.

Ant's growth in South-east Asia comes as other Chinese tech giants have similarly tapped Singapore as a base for regional expansion. These companies have fallen under immense pressure because of China's campaign against their dominance, as well as cautious stock market sentiment.

Ant, whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Jack Ma, is roughly one-third owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, which he co-founded.

Last week, Reuters reported that Alibaba and Tencent Holdings are preparing to cut tens of thousands of jobs. This could mark a major wave of layoffs since the tech crackdown began.