Alipay’s parent company Ant Financial announced that the company has started an independent business unit to specifically develop and expand its “mini apps” business, Caixin reported Thursday.

Mini apps are small and single-purpose programs that allow users to order food, transportation, and other services without having to leave the mobile payment platform. Alipay currently has over 20,000 mini apps targeted toward 700 million people who use the platform. The Alibaba-affiliate Ant Financial also said it will invest 1 billion yuan ($146 million) to support startups in the next three years.

Last year, Alipay apologized to WeChat — owned by Alibaba rival Tencent — after a tech blogger implied that China’s most widely used mobile payment platform copied the latter’s mini apps code. (Image: VCG)