Alipay, onwed by ecommerce giant Alibaba Group, on Wednesday launched in Hong Kong its first app to handle transactions not denominated in the Chinese yuan, moving closer to its ambition of widening currency payment options.
Payments through AlipayHK, which handles mobile payments in Hong Kong dollars, will be accepted at more than 2,000 stores in the city from Thursday, said Ant Financial Services Group.
The effort will help the company, which competes against Tencent Holding's WeChat Pay, to extend its reach in offline commerce beyond mainland China.
Alipay now has more than 450 million active users and payments through it are accepted at more than 2 million brick-and-mortar merchants across China, the company says.
Its standard app is already supported in more than 120,000 retail stores in 70 overseas markets via local partners, including the US, but transactions are executed in yuan.
Alipay, onwed by ecommerce giant Alibaba Group, on Wednesday launched in Hong Kong its first app to handle transactions not denominated in the Chinese yuan, moving closer to its ambition of widening currency payment options.
