(Yicai Global) Nov. 3 -- On the eve of the Nov. 11 e-commerce shopping festival, Alipay, the third-party payment platform of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA] has settled its online payment business overseas.

Payment institutions in many countries and regions have joined hands with Alipay months in advance to upgrade their local online payment networks. Local wallets in the Philippines and Hong Kong will bid on the stage of the Double 11 shopping festival this year.

For this year's Double 11, Hong Kong consumers will usher in a wholly new mobile payment experience. As they shop online on Tmall, Taobao or other websites, they can pay with Alipay HK anywhere and at any time. Previously, Hong Kongers could only use Alipay HK for online, but not offline payment. Alipay HK has now achieved full access to Hong Kong's major online and offline outlets, as Sina Tech reported yesterday.

In the Philippines, in addition to online shopping, consumers can also use a new payment method 'Scan Code to Pay' to buy goods offline. A few days ago, Alipay's Philippines version GCash officially inaugurated its business for payment via a scanned code. Philippine consumers can also scan a QR code to make payment and participate in Double 11 promotions in offline stores.

Since the beginning of this Double 11, users from Thailand and the Philippines can also join the Double 11 shopping festival via Alipay.

"Electronic payment allows consumers around the world to have a try with unobstructed traveling powered only by mobile phones equipped with an electronic wallet alone, without a wallet or credit card. Alipay has built partnerships with nearly 250 overseas financial institutions and is capable of making settlement in 27 currencies, serving more than 80 million cross-border electronic commerce buyers," said Zhang Yong, chief executive of Alibaba Group.

Double 11 is the e-commerce festival that falls on November 11 (11/11), also known as Singles' Day. It started as a 'counter-Valentine's Day' male students at Nanjing University pioneered in the 1990s to protest and resist societal pressure to wed at a young age. The students may also have taken their inspiration from the four single digits in the date, which is the prevailing, if erroneous view as to the origin of the term. Apocryphal or not, the celebration has since evolved into China's e-commerce Black Friday.