WeChat Launches Palm Payment Function

Image Source : Chinadaily.com.cn

BEIJING, May 22 (TiPost) —— China’s tech giant WeChat has launched the palm payment function, in addition to Quick Response (QR) code scanning.

When using palm payment, passengers can show their palms to pass ticket gates at stops along the subway line after inputting their palm information at the station’s ticket machines and authorizing the use through WeChat, a popular messaging app in China, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transportation,

According to the official introduction, palm payment can be used in different scenarios and light conditions. Physiological differences between palms and people’s different reach habits are not issues to be concerned about. Such a function can be used for daily shopping payments, check-in, access control and identification, public transportation, and other scenarios.

When riding the subway, passengers need to find the ticket gates with the circle symbol and face their palms to the recognition area inside the circle. After completing the identification, the light of the circle will turn green and the gate will open automatically. Fees are automatically deducted after passengers are out of the station.

WeChat palm swipe uses the most advanced palm print and vein identification technology, which enables it to greatly simplifies user operation and improve efficiency, making it more accessible to physically challenged people and the elderly.

Compared to payment through facial-recognition payment, palm payment is a bit more secure or accurate. Unlike fingerprint recognition which reads the epidermal pattern of the finger belly, palm swipe reads the cardiovascular pattern of the palm, which can avoid exposure, copying, and forgery of the palm print.

As the new gateway of Beijing, Daxing Airport serves a large number of travelers every day, and the palm payment service on the Daxing Airport Line not only realizes the deep integration of transportation experience innovation and financial technology innovation but also brings technology to people’s daily life. In the process of implementing the palm payment service, WeChat Pay and Beijing Subway are working closely together to make the Daxing Airport Line a flag subway line for all people to use palm payment during the entire boarding process.

In addition to the transportation scene, WeChat’s palm payment will also be gradually applied to office, campus, fitness, retail, catering, and other fields, to explore more innovative and efficient digital solutions for the specific needs of different industry scenarios.

However, the public also has security and privacy concerns about this new technology. Three members of the U.S. Senate expressed doubts about the security of user information in an open letter to the CEO of Amazon. They worried that Amazon would use the user palm print data for advertising tracking, and worried that the system was hacked and led to the leakage of user information. In the subway of Daxing airport line, a user watched the registration process of others and eventually did not choose to register. When asked by a reporter, he replied that he was worried about his palmprint information being leaked, and the subway opened too few stations, there was no need to take the risk of privacy leaks for the sake of  3 subway stops.

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