Also in the news is Chinese social media giant WeChat’s payments partnership with Singapore’s taxi service ComfortDelGro

Regulators raid Amazon Japan on suspicion of anti-trust violation [Reuters]

Amazon Japan said on Thursday it had been raided by the country’s fair trade regulator on suspicion of a possible anti-trust violation.

An Amazon Japan spokesperson told Reuters it was fully cooperating with the Fair Trade Commission but declined to elaborate or comment on details about the suspected violations outlined in earlier local media reports.

Citing sources related to the matter, Kyodo news agency said on Thursday the online retailer is suspected of possibly asking suppliers to shoulder part of the cost incurred from selling their products at a discount on Amazon Japan.

Ant Financial enters Pakistan by acquiring 45% in Telenor unit for US$184.5M [DealStreetAsia]

China’s Ant Financial Services Group on Tuesday entered into an agreement to acquire a 45 per cent stake in Pakistan’s Telenor Microfinance Bank (TMB), a subsidiary of Norwegian telecom giant Telenor Group, for US$184.5 million.

The investment marks a foray by Ant Financial, the payment affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, into Pakistan.

TMB offers Easypaisa, Pakistan’s first mobile financial services platform.

Launched in 2009, it has since developed into the largest branchless banking service in the country in terms of agent network, active accounts and transaction value, according to the State Bank of Pakistan. It also provides micro-finance and related financial services to the less privileged and unbanked segment of the Pakistani society.

WeChat to bring payment option to ComfortDelGro taxis from April [Channel NewsAsia]

Chinese social media giant WeChat is continuing to expand its footprint in Singapore, bringing WeChat Pay to ComfortDelGro taxis from next month, said Grace Yin, Operation Director of WeChat Pay International Business, on Thursday.

In an interview with Channel NewsAsia at the sidelines of the ongoing Money 20/20 conference, Yin disclosed the partnership as an example of how the company is targeting business users first in bringing Tencent’s services via its social media platform to this market.

Alibaba Cloud’s Indonesian data centre commences operation [press release]

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, today announced the commencement of operations for its first data centre in Indonesia.

According to the company, the data centre will provide Indonesian businesses, particularly SMEs and startups with a cost-effective cloud product and services.

Alibaba Cloud’s data centre will also help Indonesian customers with low latency or data residency requirements to store and process data within the country.

The data centre will offer a comprehensive suite of cloud products and services ranging from elastic computing, database service, networking, security and middleware to analytics and Big Data.

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