Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial updated its mobile payment app, Alipay Wallet, renaming it Alipay 9.0. The app – which is available on both iOs and Android – boasts a new interface and more features.

The additional features available in Alipay 9.0 include P2P payments, discounts from merchants and social messaging.

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"The new Alipay app is no longer a wallet," said president of Ant Financial’s payment business unit Fan Zhiming. "It is a platform which will change the way you shop, the way you spend and the way you manage your finances. It is not just another app, it is the super app tailored for every individual consumer."

Alipay’s 400 million active users utilise an Alipay QR code or barcode to pay bills and initiate payments at participating businesses. Now, they are also given two new tabs to distinguish personal transactions (Friends) from merchant services (Merchants).

The Friends tab can be used to send and receive money instantly, track personal loans as well as send private messages. The Merchants tab provides an overview of businesses nearby, their ongoing discounts and live coupons. Payments to merchants are also made in this section.

This upgrade to Alipay also comes as Apple files for a P2P payments patent that uses NFC and Bluetooth technologies.

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With non-bank payment service providers evolving so quickly, how are banks in the region responding? Standard Chartered’s global head of retail products, Kartik Mani, said: "We understand that to move nimbly within this space, we need to partner with financial technology companies in niche areas."

In Singapore, the bank has partnered with local telecommunications provider SingTel to offer Dash Pay, a mobile wallet that features convenient top-up options and allows clients to pay businesses and friends in a fast and secure manner.

"In addition, we created the Straight2Bank Wallet mobile app that enables transactions using mobile numbers instead of bank account numbers in several markets. For example, a business owner in the Philippines can make instant, secure cashless payments to individuals’ mobile wallets – whether or not they have bank accounts," Mani added.

Such initiatives indicate that banks in the region are serious about remaining competitive within the payments landscape in the face of competition from non-banks. So, it will be interesting to see how both sides will evolve in the near future while vying for the bigger market share.