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Business English Power, Episode 54. Aloha

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and welcome to Business English Power, the

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show for ambitious English students who want

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to level up their business English skills,

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become global communicators and

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international business leaders.

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Hello everyone, welcome. My name is Al. Thank

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you so much for joining me today.

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I am also known as Al Sensei

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here online and during my

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18 years spent in

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Japan doing some teaching,

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some coaching and

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some consulting. And it's great

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to be here with you today. Today

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we're going to get into our latest edition

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of Current Events. We

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try to do Current Events every weekend or

0:48

at least three times a month. As

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we stay in touch with all the latest news,

0:53

things that will help you stay in touch

0:56

with your colleagues, your

0:58

business clients, things

1:00

like that. You want to make sure

1:02

that you're keeping up to date so that

1:04

you can participate in those conversations. But

1:07

also for your knowledge, you can

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expand your vocabulary as well. So

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we're going to get into this in just

1:14

one second. Before we do, please subscribe to

1:17

Business English Power. And

1:19

consider sharing this episode with a friend,

1:21

a classmate and a

1:23

colleague. And I would definitely appreciate

1:26

that very much. So

1:28

today we're going to do an article from CNBC. So

1:33

CNBC of course is the financial wing

1:35

of NBC. And

1:38

you can find them at cnbc.com of course. And I

1:40

will link to our

1:42

article in the show notes as always.

1:44

So please follow along if you can.

1:47

If you have the opportunity to follow along

1:49

with me, that's the best way to take

1:51

in this episode. Or if

1:53

you can't, go back later and follow

1:55

along with the article because we're going

1:57

to cover The article

2:00

today. in it is titled

2:02

China's and Group doubles down

2:04

on global expansion with cross

2:06

border payments offering hourly pay

2:09

plus. Or

2:11

it's really didn't know this article again

2:13

on cnbc.com and the link will be

2:15

in the show notes. Now. Now

2:18

hopefully some of the have

2:20

heard of at least Alley

2:22

Pay or Ali Baba How

2:24

the Express of course it

2:26

is from China and this

2:28

is their version. Or they

2:30

an online payment. Processor.

2:33

Payment Gateway and so gonna take a

2:35

look at this today in what they're

2:37

trying to do in is called Alley

2:40

Pay Plus Antennas and to group we're

2:42

gonna talk about. What? They

2:44

are and what company they represent

2:46

as well as what does doubled

2:48

down the mean. Came.

2:51

Or talk about all that. And

2:53

let's get into the article again.

2:55

from today: This is May fifth

2:58

Local time ram, but it's dated

3:00

May sixth because it's already that

3:02

time overseas. But.

3:04

You can find that articles ago and

3:06

has ominous scroll down to the first

3:09

paragraph here. So let's begin. The

3:12

Chinese Sin Tech Major and

3:14

group is looking to boost

3:16

it's global presence via it's

3:18

digital offering hourly Pay Plus

3:21

as it seeks to connect

3:23

mobile payment apps around the

3:25

world. Kill its paws. Their

3:27

case in Texas has become

3:29

a new. Word. Or

3:31

common word these days and

3:33

financial and text. Or

3:36

technology put together syntax. And.

3:39

And group guess arena they're going

3:41

to explain what that is all

3:43

but later. Ah, but they are

3:45

list looking to boost it's global

3:47

presence again internationally. Digital

3:50

offering is so. Again, their

3:52

digital and offering is like a product

3:54

or service Typically. alley

3:56

pay plus now as we know

3:58

everything today is Blah blah blah

4:01

plus right we have Apple plus we have Paramount

4:03

plus we have Walmart plus

4:06

we have all these things that are plus

4:08

right And so this

4:10

is just the next Thing out

4:12

there of course it's from Alibaba

4:14

or that company and so

4:17

this is their payment way, so it's

4:19

Ali pay plus All

4:22

right, I was seeking to connect payment

4:24

mobile payment apps around the world. Let's

4:26

continue. This is a quote What

4:29

we found is that people want to

4:31

use their their home e-wallets

4:33

when they travel abroad So

4:36

they don't want to have to load their

4:38

card into another app That

4:41

they don't know know as well Douglas

4:43

so that's the quote by Douglas Fagin

4:46

senior vice president of Ant

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Group an affiliate of Chinese

4:50

tech giant Alibaba told

4:53

CNBC Okay,

4:55

so this is Douglas Fagin senior

4:57

vice president from Ant Group which is an affiliate

5:00

of Alibaba All

5:03

right, and so let me know

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do you when you travel abroad? Do

5:08

you have or do

5:10

you use an e-wallet? Are

5:13

you able to use that as you travel or? Do

5:17

you use credit cards when you're abroad? Do you

5:19

always get the local currency? How do

5:22

you do it when you travel

5:24

abroad? in terms of

5:26

payments well,

5:28

they're saying it's kind of a hassle for people as

5:30

they go abroad, so they'd rather do it at home

5:32

and Take

5:35

away the hassle. Okay, so let's move on

5:39

the group's global arm and International

5:41

introduced Ali pay plus in 2020

5:45

Allowing foreigners to use apps from

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their home countries to make payments

5:49

in China by scanning QR codes

5:52

of Ali pay Ant groups largely

5:54

domestically focused platform and In

5:57

other countries via local partners Let's

6:00

pause there. So

6:03

they're global arms, so just meaning the

6:05

global wing or global branch of the

6:07

company, and international. So

6:10

they introduced this actually in 2020. Interesting.

6:14

Allow them to use apps

6:16

from their home countries to make payments in China

6:19

by using QR codes. Because

6:25

Alipay is largely a domestically

6:27

focused platform. So

6:29

they're using other partner apps to be

6:32

able to do that using QR codes.

6:34

Interesting. This was in 2020. So

6:37

here we go with another quote in the next paragraph. Also

6:42

by the same gentleman. We

6:44

see a huge opportunity for expansion

6:46

and the relatively broad coverage we

6:48

have in Asia. We

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would like to replicate it in places

6:53

like Middle East, Latin,

6:56

and Europe, said

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Faegan. People from all

7:00

these regions are going to other regions,

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so a big opportunity to expand. End

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quote. So maybe

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English is not this gentleman's native language,

7:10

perhaps, but it's fine. We can get

7:12

the general message. So

7:16

of course, there are opportunities to expand into

7:18

places like the Middle East, Europe, and

7:20

all around the world, and so that's

7:23

what they're looking to do. Why not, right? I'm

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scrolling down now to the next paragraph. Ant

7:30

had invested in country specific

7:32

e-wallets across Asia, but

7:34

the CEOs wanted to take their

7:37

products overseas, said Faegan, also

7:39

president of Ant International. Let's

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continue. The company had

7:45

some cross border tourism business from

7:47

customers traveling outside of China, said

7:49

Faegan. But that was

7:51

quote, mostly focused on where the

7:53

Chinese tourists go, end quote, and

7:56

had entered Europe and the

7:59

US where Chinese tourism was booming

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before the COVID-19 pandemic through

8:04

Alipay. Okay,

8:06

let's pause there. Okay, so seems

8:10

like this was going before they

8:13

had some cross border tourism business from

8:16

customers traveling outside of China. But again, that

8:18

was mostly focused on where Chinese tourists go.

8:20

So they were using it. Um,

8:23

and again, in Europe and the U S and

8:27

that was booming. So again, business was

8:29

very good before the

8:31

COVID-19 pandemic. Okay.

8:34

And that was with Alipay. Now let's

8:37

continue. And with

8:39

its Alipay plus offering

8:42

seeks to make the most of the early

8:44

inroads into those markets.

8:48

Let's go ahead to the next quote. We

8:51

had the benefit that Alipay was already accepted

8:53

in many merchants around the

8:55

world. So one of our first steps was

8:58

to convert those merchants to Alipay

9:00

plus merchants. So instead of

9:02

just accepting a wallet, they can

9:04

accept many wallets, said Fagin. And

9:07

let's round it out here. Alipay plus

9:09

now connects 88 million merchants

9:13

in 57 countries and regions to

9:15

1.5 billion consumer accounts

9:17

across more than

9:20

25 e-wallets and bank

9:23

apps, according to ant. Okay.

9:26

So we did three paragraphs here. Let's back

9:28

up. Okay. So again, they

9:30

use the word offering. So it's

9:32

a good word to get to know when

9:34

we talk about business, uh, products and services.

9:36

So Alipay plus offering seeks to

9:38

make the most of the early inroads. Okay.

9:41

So inroad is like progress,

9:43

simply speaking, the, imagine

9:46

creating a new path. We call that

9:48

an inroad. And so

9:50

it's basically progress that they made

9:52

into this business, expanding Alipay. Now,

9:55

uh, Alipay

9:58

was already accepted in. many

10:00

merchants around the world. So again,

10:02

Alipay was just the wallet

10:05

and now Alipay Plus connects a lot of

10:08

wallets together. And so in the last paragraph,

10:10

we had all the numbers. 88

10:13

million merchants, say that stores, restaurants,

10:15

shops, anything that accepts this as

10:18

a business payment. And

10:20

then 57 countries and 1.5

10:23

billion consumer accounts. Wow. Okay, so

10:26

it's a lot and it connects

10:28

25 e-wallets and bank apps. Okay,

10:31

pretty cool. Now

10:33

the next section is called the growth market. So I'm going

10:35

to skip that so you can read that on your own.

10:38

And this talks about how they look at

10:40

expanding into certain countries. So I'm

10:42

going to go past that and

10:44

down to the next section called

10:47

from problems to solutions. Okay, let's

10:50

continue there. Ant Group's

10:52

future in China became uncertain when regulators

10:54

pulled the plug on its additional public

10:57

offering in November of 2020. Ant

11:01

was also forced to restructure to become

11:03

a financial holding company regulated by the

11:06

central bank. Okay, let's pause

11:08

there. So yeah, they

11:10

had some problems initially in 2020. And

11:13

so they're not, they're going to talk about the solutions. So

11:19

the regulators pulled the plug. So what does

11:21

that mean? Pull the plug. That's a good

11:24

idea. Now pull the plug as

11:26

you can imagine if you have something plugged in,

11:28

let's say your computer is plugged into the wall.

11:31

Well, imagine unplugging that and then you

11:33

lose power, right? So basically you lose

11:35

functionality, assuming that your

11:37

battery is not working. So

11:39

anything that you pull the plug or unplug

11:43

means that you're stopping it. So

11:47

good idiom there. And its initial

11:49

public offerings. You guys maybe have heard

11:51

of IPO. And that's what

11:53

that means, initial public offering, which means when

11:56

a company decides to go public is another

11:58

term we say go public. public, it

12:01

starts to offer shares for sale to

12:03

the public. That's what the

12:05

initial public offering is. Okay,

12:08

so they were forced to restructure. Let's

12:12

continue on. Here's a quote by

12:16

a different person. Okay, here we go.

12:19

Following restructuring mandated by China's

12:21

regulators that occurred concurrently with

12:23

various geopolitical tensions that

12:26

impacted its ability to expand in certain

12:28

markets and modified its

12:30

global expansion strategy. The

12:32

result was Alipay Plus, which aims

12:34

to resolve interoperability

12:38

hiccups for e-wallets, said

12:40

Capron. Okay, so maybe

12:42

they introduced that person in the last section, which we didn't

12:44

do. That's fine. Let's pause

12:46

there. There's a lot of terms there. Okay,

12:49

so restructuring mandated. Okay, so mandated

12:51

means basically ordered or commanded by

12:55

China's regulators that

12:58

occurred concurrently. Okay, so concurrently,

13:00

great word there for your

13:02

vocabulary. It just means at the same

13:04

time. Various

13:07

geopolitical tensions. Okay, so again, geopolitical

13:11

things going on around the world politically in

13:13

different countries or different places. Again,

13:16

things that are conflicts

13:18

or things that are not going smoothly

13:22

impact its ability to expand. Yep, so

13:25

it affected, it basically slowed down those

13:27

possibilities. Now

13:31

trying to get around all of that,

13:33

the invented Alipay, which

13:36

is to resolve interoperability. What

13:38

a word. That's the first

13:40

time I've heard of that word. So I guess that means being

13:43

able to use it in

13:45

more places around the world,

13:47

interoperability and then hiccups.

13:49

So those are like roadblocks or obstacles.

13:52

Okay, all right, let's

13:54

continue. We're almost done. Three more paragraphs.

13:58

The firm first targeted countries. with

14:00

large populations to rapidly expand its

14:02

user base," said Fagan. It

14:05

also looked at key tourism

14:07

destinations such as Japan, Thailand,

14:09

and Singapore. Okay,

14:11

let's continue. Here's a quote from Fagan again.

14:14

These are big markets for people wanting to

14:16

come and visit, and so we focused a

14:18

lot on building out their merchant coverage there,

14:20

said Fagan. And

14:23

now it's doubling down

14:26

on its global expansion with its

14:28

eye on the European, Latin American,

14:30

and Middle East markets. All

14:33

right, so that's the end of the article. Let's go

14:35

back. So they basically are

14:38

saying they were first

14:40

targeting companies with large populations

14:43

to rapidly expand the user base, of course, in

14:45

Asia. Tourism

14:48

spots like Japan, Thailand, Singapore. So

14:53

they were working on the tourism end. Now

14:56

it is doubling down. Okay, so what does

14:58

that mean? It's also in the title of

15:01

this article. So, double

15:03

down simply means to, again,

15:07

double your efforts or

15:09

double your commitment to

15:11

the business or that particular business

15:14

move or investment. Okay,

15:17

so double down, if you're

15:19

wondering originally, as far as I

15:21

know, comes from the gambling term used

15:24

in Blackjack, also known as

15:26

21. So

15:28

it's a gambling move where you can

15:30

double your bet, okay, which means that

15:33

you double the risk in certain cases. And

15:36

so, you know, if you

15:39

have something invested

15:41

already and it's not yet decided,

15:44

whether it's going to be a win or a loss,

15:47

if you double your investment or double your

15:49

bets, that's called a double down. So

15:51

they believe that Alipay Plus is going to

15:53

work. And so not just

15:55

only in Asia, but now they want to expand in

15:58

other markets, which means they're doubling down. their

16:00

investment into Alipay Plus.

16:05

Alright, so that is it. We have

16:07

a lot of good vocabulary here in

16:09

this article. Really interesting. I hope

16:11

you found it interesting as well. If you weren't

16:14

able to follow along, go back and

16:16

check it out. Also, you can read that

16:18

middle section that we didn't have time to do

16:20

on the show today. But

16:22

let me know what you thought. Email me

16:24

al.at.businessenglishpower.com. Let me know if you have any

16:27

questions. al.at.businessenglishpower.com.

16:31

And also be sure to check out

16:33

businessenglishpower.com as we will be launching the

16:36

new Business English Power

16:38

Academy very shortly. I would

16:40

love to see you there. Get signed up on the

16:42

early bird list so you don't miss any updates. And

16:45

we will be launching that very

16:48

soon and I can't wait because it's gonna

16:50

be pretty, pretty awesome. Alright

16:52

guys, we're gonna wrap up there. Thanks so much for joining

16:54

me today. And this is Al

16:56

signing off and reminding you to always level

16:59

up your learning and level up your

17:02

life.