In the future, picture yourself being able to do almost anything with only a wave of your hand, including paying for things, boarding the metro, and entering buildings. Tencent is already doing it in China.
The digital behemoth with headquarters in Shenzhen has launched a palm scanning service in China that allows customers to leave most of their necessities at home, including wallets, phones, and house keys.
The technology is not new; Amazon (AMZN) and other companies have been using it for years. However, Guo Rizen, a senior company official, states that Tencent aspires to be the company that brings the technology to the mainstream.
When asked if this may set a new standard, Guo, vice general manager of Tencent’s Weixin Pay Industry Application unit, told CNN in an exclusive interview, “We have confidence in this.”
Tencent is arguably the most experienced Chinese corporation when it comes to serving large audiences. It is the owner of WeChat, a popular Chinese platform that is widely used for social networking, grocery ordering, and digital payments. It has earned the moniker “super-app.”
It is now placing bets on Weixin Palm Payment, a biometric system available to users of Weixin Pay, WeChat’s sibling app, which was introduced in May. The service is limited to China’s mainland.
Hovering hands over a sensor, the program enables users to forego using transport cards or smartphones when boarding a Beijing subway line, for instance. Subsequently, infrared cameras examine each user’s distinct vein patterns and palm prints beneath the skin, enabling instantaneous identification and payment processing.
According to a forecast by consulting firm Goode Intelligence, the worldwide biometric payments market is expected to reach over 3 billion users and approximately $5.8 trillion in value by 2026. JPMorgan highlighted the possibility when it revealed its own trial test for palm scanning-based payment authentication software last year.
Guo claims that the method is comparable to facial recognition software, but it is more accurate. “With face scanning technology, people can look a lot like each other — like twins,” he remarked. “However, with palm payments, even identically shaped siblings have different veins and palm prints.”
According to Guo, the program is also viewed by the industry as an improvement over systems that have been in use for a while by several Japanese companies that enable workers to enter office buildings by scanning their palms.
According to him, users of those systems must place their hands on top of scanning machines, something they would be less inclined to do now that the pandemic has increased people’s fear of germs.
Expanding
Both Tencent and Amazon have contactless iterations. In 2020, the e-commerce behemoth headquartered in Seattle introduced its own payment method that utilized palm prints and credit cards to enable customers to make purchases at its cashierless stores.
The Japanese IT behemoth Fujitsu has also long provided a contact-free technology for cybersecurity applications. Rather than utilizing passwords to authenticate internet accounts, customers can scan their hands with the company’s PalmSecure service.
Tencent, though, desires to expand. Guo claims that the corporation is attempting to integrate its platform into everyday life.
He stated, “The application scenarios can be a little different.” “We want to make people’s lives easier by eliminating the hassle of carrying physical goods with us by implementing palm payments.”
For instance, Guo claims that Tencent employees are using the system to enter corporate canteens for lunch, which spares them the trouble of having to rush back to their workstations in case they forget their security cards.
Additionally, the technology is being progressively introduced outside. Over 1,500 7-Eleven locations in the Guangdong province in southern China have implemented it.
Approximately 2,000 people have registered to utilize palm scanning at the hip Chinese fitness chain Supermonkey to check in and out of the facilities for exercises, the business said.
Guo emphasizes that the service is still in its early stages even though he is positive with the response thus far. He stated that Tencent had not made up its mind to expand its use outside of mainland China and that “whether to roll it out on a large scale depends on the market demand” and feedback.
privacy issues
Experts have cautioned against using such technology.
According to Edward Santow, an industry professor of responsible technology at the University of Technology Sydney, privacy and security concerns are still very much present, even if many customers have welcomed it as a method to lessen their dependency on credit cards and cell phones.
He declared, “People…don’t want to be part of some kind of surveillance state.” “They don’t want [that] to appear on some official register after they pay for something, where they might then be questioned or worse, concerned about it.”
Tencent responded by telling CNN that its top priorities are security and privacy. According to the statement, users’ biometric data is encrypted and kept on the cloud for protection.
Guo highlighted that customers may set their own spending limitations for approved payments and that the scanning service was only available to those who voluntarily signed up for it. The number of users the company had remained a secret.
Guo believes that carrying a tangible object poses a greater risk. Someone else will possess it if you inadvertently lose it, don’t you think? It’s actually pretty unstable,” he claimed. We therefore believe that these physical [things] might not be required in the near future.
Using Tencent’s palm scanning service at a Supermonkey gym in Shenzhen, Kate Xue expressed that she wasn’t very concerned about her data ending up in the wrong hands.
Regarding the possibility of abuse, she told CNN, “I think it’s inevitable.” “I think that information about everyone will be shared in the future if we accept AI or other technological changes.”