Alibaba Group and Ant Financial Services Group have entered a strategic partnership with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, in which the companies will deepen their cooperation in fintech and financial services. 

The companies plan to use their expertise in payments, ecommerce and fintech to focus on electronic payment settlement, cross-border finance and scenario-based financial services. 

“Complimenting each other’s strengths, ICBC and the Alibaba digital economy have been working together to build a range of products,” Chen Siqing, chairman of ICBC, said in a joint release from the companies. “Our cooperation expands beyond payment and e-commerce to include more areas including global corporate finance, scenario-based finance and financial innovation.”

ICBC has been working with Ant Financial’s Alipay since 2005, when the companies began offering mobile mobile payment service to customers. 

ICBC is the world’s largest bank by asset-size, with more than 600 million personal customers and 7 million business customers.