lackBerry Messenger and Alipay will next month introduce their joint e-wallet called DANA which will allow users to make payments and transfer funds.
“The e-wallet will be integrated with and accessible through the messenger,” said BlackBerry Messenger CEO Matthew Talbot on Monday while introducing the beta version of DANA on his phone.
Alipay is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group.
Meanwhile, BlackBerry Messenger has evolved into an ecosystem in which users can do various things from reading news, shopping, booking plane tickets to paying electricity bills. In August, ride-hailing application Uber was integrated into the messenger.
"From a simple chatting app, BlackBerry Messenger has evolved into a complete ecosystem," Talbot said.
He added that the BlackBerry Messenger had a long term contract with Indonesian Elang Mahkota Teknologi (Emtek), giving the latter the right to develop and market the messenger.
The content and applications inside the messenger are mostly owned by Emtek such as Bukalapak e-commerce and Reservasi.com online ticket booking. (bbn)
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