(Photo/CGTN)

Ant Financial, the arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba group, officially launched AlipayHK mobile application on Thursday, enabling users to register accounts using local phone numbers and top up their mobile wallets with Hong Kong dollars (HKD) and link them with HKD credit cards.

Over 2,000 stores in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region currently support payments via Alipay, which processes money transaction automatically by scanning a QR code, either by the customer or cashier.

Meanwhile, the original app will still in use in HK and will be able to accept both currencies by the end of this year.

In August 2016, five companies, namely Alipay wallet, WeChat payment, TNG (Asia), HKT Payment and Octopus cards were granted the first Stored Value Facilities (SVF) licenses by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, allowing them to provide third-party payment services in the SAR.