China's Alibaba Group Holding Limited is set to expand its Alipay services in Hong Kong as it aims to include 8,000 merchants before the year ends.

Alipay, an online payment service, will be launched in Hong Kong by Oct. 13, China Daily reported.

This will give the country's tourists the chance to use the system in making purchases in Hong Kong. To date, only the mainland's visitors can use Alipay whenever they want to buy something from Hong Kong.

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Ant Financial Services Group senior vice-president and head of international business Douglas Feagin revealed that with Alipay's operation in the Special Administrative Region of China, the company is now keen of encouraging more merchants to sign up. The Ant Financial is an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

With its current license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Chinese e-commerce giant is moving towards enabling local consumers use the online payment service in convenience stores and other offline merchants.

As its next move, Feagin divulged that they will apply for a permit with HKMA asking them to let Alipay of China's Alibaba offer other services such as mobile payment at POS machines, peer-to-peer transfers and issuance of physical cards.

In the meantime, Bloomberg reported that Ant Financial may just be worth more than the American multi-national banking firm Goldman Sachs Group Incorporated.

Head of telecom and Internet research at CLSA in Hong Kong Elinor Leung reportedly shared that majority of the value of Jack Ma's Ant Financial could be in Alipay.

It was noted that in June, the affiliate of China's Alibaba was already worth about $60 billion, and it is estimated to be at $75 billion already at present - a figure which could be higher than Goldman Sachs'.

Tagschina, China Alibaba, Alipay, Alipay Hong Kong