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Payments/HK

Hong Kong

ISO HK · 6 schemes

Summary

  • Instant transfers are the everyday way to send money. In 2025 the Faster Payment System (FPS) carried 868 million Hong Kong dollar payments worth HK$8.62 trillion, and by the end of September 2026 it held 22.04 million registrations of phone numbers, email addresses, FPS IDs and HKID numbers [1].
  • Wallets and cards carry everyday spending. SVF accounts, which include Octopus and the phone wallets, numbered 90.38 million at the end of June 2026 and made about 2.2 billion transactions in the quarter [2]. Credit cards made 403.94 million transactions worth HK$286.5 billion in the same quarter [3].
  • Nearly every adult has an account. 97.3% of people aged 15 and over held an account in 2024, according to the World Bank [4].
  • There is a common QR standard, and FPS QR codes are on government bills. An HKMA working group published the Common QR Code Specification for Retail Payments in December 2017, built on EMVCo's merchant-presented format [17]. Water, tax and rates bills have carried an FPS QR code since 1 November 2019 [30].
  • FPS now reaches the mainland and Thailand. Payment Connect links FPS to the mainland's IBPS since 22 June 2025 [26], and the FPS x PromptPay link has let travellers pay merchants' QR codes in either place since 4 December 2023 [28].
  • The Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar. The Linked Exchange Rate System has held it within HK$7.75–7.85 to one US dollar since 17 October 1983 [21].
  • More money leaves than arrives. Personal remittances received were US$479 million in 2025, about 0.11% of GDP [33][35], while remittances paid out were US$1.15 billion [34].

How people pay in Hong Kong

The HKMA and the FPS operator publish separate statistics for each way to pay, but no single table for all of them. Their latest figures:

Way to pay Period Transactions Value
FPS, Hong Kong dollar payments (all types) 2025 868.0 million HK$8.62 trillion
FPS, Hong Kong dollar payments (all types) September 2026 84.6 million HK$831.1 billion
Stored value facilities (Octopus, wallets) April–June 2026 about 2.2 billion HK$264.7 billion
Credit cards issued in Hong Kong April–June 2026 403.94 million HK$286.5 billion
Debit cards (retail sales and bill payments) April–June 2026 55.39 million HK$61.1 billion

Sources: FPS [1]; SVF [2]; cards [3].

Wallet value is spread thinly over many small payments. Of the HK$264.7 billion SVF total in the second quarter of 2026, HK$47.7 billion was spending at shops, HK$33.8 billion online spending and HK$16.4 billion person-to-person transfers; the rest was money added to or withdrawn from wallets [2]. Of the credit card value, HK$186.7 billion was retail spending in Hong Kong and HK$91.1 billion spending overseas [3].

Bank transfers. Transfers between banks and wallets go over FPS, run by Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited (HKICL) around the clock, in Hong Kong dollars and renminbi [13]. You enter the payee's phone number or email address, or their account number, and the app shows a masked name before you confirm [13]. Of the 868 million FPS payments in 2025, 173 million were sent by individuals to a phone number, email or FPS ID, and 129 million to an account number; 351 million were real-time direct debits, such as topping up a wallet from a bank account [1]. HSBC waives its fee for a Hong Kong dollar or renminbi FPS payment sent from online or mobile banking, and for one received, under its tariff of 1 August 2026 [14].

Bank accounts. The World Bank put account ownership at 97.3% of adults in 2024 and 97.8% in 2021 [4].

Octopus. The contactless Octopus card has paid fares since September 1997 [7] and works in shops too. Octopus Cards Limited holds stored value facility licence SVF0001 [5]. Its undated business page claims over 36 million cards and products in circulation, 15 million transactions a day worth HK$300 million, and over 210,000 acceptance points [6]. Octopus doesn't say how old those figures are.

Mobile wallets. The HKMA's register listed 11 non-bank SVF licensees in August 2026, including Alipay Financial Services (HK) (SVF0004, the AlipayHK operator) and WeChat Pay Hong Kong (SVF0005), both licensed from 25 August 2016. Four banks also issue stored value under their banking licence, among them HSBC (SVFB002, PayMe) and Bank of China (Hong Kong) (SVFB072, BoC Pay) [5]. HSBC said in March 2026 that PayMe had over 3.3 million users [8]. For AlipayHK the counts disagree. Antom, Ant's own merchant platform, gave 4.5 million active users and more than 170,000 merchants in May 2026 [9]. Worldpay's page, updated October 2026, gave about 2.7 million active users [10]. WeChat Pay HK pays in Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland, and sends money over FPS and Payment Connect [11]. BoC Pay+ pays merchants that accept UnionPay QR or FPS QR codes, and pays bills by scanning FPS QR codes [12]. The wallets interoperate through FPS, which connects banks and SVF operators [13].

QR codes. A shop's code can come from FPS, a wallet or a card scheme. The industry's common QR specification (see the next section) lets a merchant merge several providers' static codes into one, using the HKQR app from HKICL [15]. Your own FPS QR code may contain your phone number, email address or FPS ID, so the HKMA advises showing it only when necessary [13].

Cards. There were 31.03 million credit cards in circulation at the end of June 2026 [3]. Hong Kong's bank-card debit network, run by 易辦事(香港)有限公司, has worked since 1985 and is taken at over 30,000 locations in Hong Kong and Macau [37].

Fraud to watch for. The police recorded 43,212 deception cases in 2025, with losses of about HK$8.1 billion, down from HK$9.2 billion in 2024. E-shopping fraud was the most common (12,505 cases), and online investment fraud cost the most (HK$3.58 billion) [19]. Since November 2023 banking and wallet apps warn you when an FPS phone number, email or FPS ID is labelled "High Risk" in the police's Scameter database. From 4 August 2024 the alert also covered transfers by account number, online and at bank counters. By the end of June 2024 over 655,000 alerts had been shown [18]. The HKMA says banks never send SMS or emails with links for you to carry out transactions, and never ask for passwords or one-time passwords [20]. It also warns that an FPS payment is like paying cash: it arrives at once, so check the seller first [13]. The police anti-scam helpline is 18222 [18].

If you're visiting. Three commercial banks issue most Hong Kong banknotes, and the government issues the HK$10 note and the coins [22]. Visitors with an iPhone can add an Octopus with a non-Hong Kong Mastercard, UnionPay or Visa card in Apple Pay, or fund it from Weixin Pay or the e-CNY app [23]. The MTR began accepting contactless bank cards at its gates on 23 December 2023, starting with Visa at designated gates in every heavy-rail station except Airport Express stations [24]. QR tickets through AlipayHK came earlier, from 23 January 2021 at all 93 stations [25]. Octopus's mobile terminal for taxis accepts the Octopus wallet, UnionPay QR, WeChat Pay and Alipay, plus visitors' wallets such as LINE Pay through Visa [6].

The national QR code and instant payments

FPS is the instant rail, live since 2018. The HKMA launched FPS in September 2018, and it is operated by HKICL, a company jointly owned by the HKMA and the Hong Kong Association of Banks [15][26]. HKICL dates the full launch to 30 September 2018 [1]. It connects banks and SVF operators, runs 24 hours a day, and settles Hong Kong dollars and renminbi [13]. You can register four kinds of proxy to receive money: a phone number, an email address, an FPS ID, and, since 6 December 2020, an HKID number. The HKID proxy is only for institutions that already hold your HKID number, not for person-to-person payments [13]. At the end of September 2026 there were 12.67 million phone-number registrations, 3.21 million email, 4.62 million FPS ID and 1.53 million HKID registrations. One person can hold several [1].

The common QR specification is voluntary and EMVCo-based. The Common QR Code Specification for Retail Payments in Hong Kong (merchant-presented mode), version 1.0, was published in December 2017 [17]. It uses the EMVCo MPM tag-length-value layout inside an ordinary QR code, with country code "HK" and currency code "344" for Hong Kong dollars [17]. Its purpose is to let a merchant, especially a small one, show one code instead of several. Providers that want to adopt it follow an implementation guideline [16]. HKICL's HKQR app merges only static codes that follow the specification, from participating providers [15]. HKICL publishes the specification as the QR standard for FPS merchants [15]. We did not read a published template for the FPS fields inside the code, so this page does not describe them. We found no rule making the common code mandatory for merchants as of 21 October 2026.

Cross-boundary links. HKICL lists two links that take FPS abroad, FPS x PromptPay and Payment Connect [15].

  • FPS x PromptPay (Thailand), since 4 December 2023. Travellers from Thailand scan a Hong Kong merchant's FPS QR code with their own app, and Hong Kong travellers scan a Thai merchant's PromptPay code; the merchant is paid at once. HKICL and Thailand's NITMX run the two systems, with HSBC and Bangkok Bank as settlement banks. Seven banks and two non-bank SVFs from Hong Kong, and three Thai banks, took part at launch [28].
  • Payment Connect (mainland China), since 22 June 2025. The link between FPS and the mainland's Internet Banking Payment System (IBPS) sends small remittances in renminbi or Hong Kong dollars to a phone number or account number. Six institutions on each side took part at launch [26], and 26 Hong Kong and 18 mainland institutions by 2 September 2026 [27]. Hong Kong identity card holders can send northbound 24 hours a day, up to HK$10,000 a day and HK$200,000 a year per participating institution, and only to personal accounts. Southbound payments from the mainland run 7:00 to 23:00 and can be addressed by phone, email, FPS ID or account number [27].

Paying a bill or invoice here

By FPS QR code. Government bills are where the QR code is most established. From 1 November 2019, bills from the Inland Revenue Department, the Rating and Valuation Department and the Water Supplies Department have been printed with FPS QR codes, which you scan in a supporting bank or wallet app [30]. In October 2026 HKICL listed eleven departments and offices whose regular bills carry the code, including the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, Hongkong Post, the Lands Department and general demand notes. Dozens more take FPS at counters, kiosks and online payment pages [29]. AlipayHK [32] and BoC Pay+ [12] both say they scan these bill codes.

By PPS. PPS, run jointly by 易辦事(香港)有限公司 and HKT since 1993, is a free 24-hour bill payment service by phone or internet from a registered bank account. It covers over 900 merchants, from utilities and government to schools and charities [31].

By autopay or in the wallet. Regular bills can be paid by direct debit (autoPay); HSBC charges nothing to set one up in its mobile app and HK$50 by paper form [14]. AlipayHK has its own bill payment list of merchants, with an option to switch on automatic payment [32].

Beware fake customer service. AlipayHK warned of fraudsters posing as its customer service and sending fake one-time login passwords from fake mobile base stations. It said it never calls unless you asked it to, and never sends one-time login passwords [32]. The police counted 4,440 phone scams in 2025 in which callers posed as customer service, 20.4% fewer than in 2024 [19].

Is there a QR code on the bill? On a government bill, usually yes: an FPS QR code you can scan with any supporting bank or wallet app [29]. Check the payee and amount the app shows before you confirm [13]. We could not read the electricity companies' payment pages, so we can't say whether their bills carry one.

Sending money from abroad

How much arrives. Hong Kong is a net sender of remittances. The World Bank put personal remittances received at US$479 million in 2025, up from US$458 million in 2024, about 0.11% of GDP [33][35]. Remittances paid out were US$1.15 billion [34]. We found no official breakdown by sending country.

Who handles it. Banks receive international transfers. A remittance or money-changing business needs a money service operator licence from the Commissioner of Customs and Excise; since 1 April 2023, the maximum penalty for running one without a licence is a HK$1,000,000 fine and two years in prison [36].

From the mainland. Mainland residents can send to Hong Kong over Payment Connect from a participating mainland bank, addressed to a phone number, email, FPS ID or account number, between 7:00 and 23:00 [27]. WeChat Pay HK says it charges no handling fee for Payment Connect [11].

From further away. A transfer from Europe or the US arrives by telegraphic transfer. HSBC waives its own charge for one credited to an HSBC account, unless the sender chose to pay all charges ("OUR"). Correspondent or overseas banks may still take a fee from the amount [14]. Other banks set their own fees.

We could not read the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide data for Hong Kong corridors, so this page gives no average cost of sending money to Hong Kong.

Payment schemes on this site

  • FPS: read this if you want to send money by phone number or email, pay by FPS QR code, or know how proxies, limits and Payment Connect work.
  • Octopus: read this if you ride the MTR, want Octopus on your phone, or are visiting and need a card for fares.
  • PayMe: read this if you send money to friends with PayMe, or collect payments with an HSBC PayMe code.
  • AlipayHK: read this if you pay shops, MTR fares or government bills with AlipayHK, or want to know how it differs from mainland Alipay.
  • WeChat Pay HK: read this if you pay in Hong Kong dollars inside WeChat, in Hong Kong or on trips to the mainland.
  • BoC Pay: read this if you bank with Bank of China (Hong Kong) and want to pay UnionPay or FPS QR codes, bills, or merchants across the Greater Bay Area.

Sources

Full country report

HK-hong-kong.md

Standards

Primary · 1

Mentioned · 3

source · content/payments/HK/index.md