Alipay and Huawei team up for biometric mobile payments

China’s Alipay e-commerce platform has teamed up with handset manufacturer Huawei to develop a system enabling people make biometric mobile payments with their fingerprints.

Alipay is planning to introduce fingerprint-based biometric payment

The system utilises the fingerprint reader of Huawei’s Mate 7 handset. Users of Alipay’s Wallet app will be able to confirm transactions with a fingerprint scan, eliminating the need for passwords. Biometric data is encrypted and only third-party approved apps will access the information for transactions.

Fingerprint-based mobile payment activity is accelerating, with the September 9 launch of the next Apple iPhone handset expected to include NFC capability alongside the Touch ID fingerprint reader. Meanwhile, Samsung’s Galaxy S5 phone is already being used with PayPal.