Currently the QR code payment is widely applied in China. From supermarket to street side stores and from meals to taxi, everything can be paid via scanning QR code. In China, all you need is a smart phone, which is even more important than cash these days. Today, China is the world’s largest and fastest-growing market for mobile payments. The transaction volume of third-party mobile payments reached RMB 40.36 trillion in the first quarter, ahead of the US and the rest of the world (Jao, 2019).
As the development of mobile payment, facial payment is also available right now in China as new entrance. It reduces human resource cost dramatically. However, the current facial payment is not efficient and convenient enough since you still have to fill in your last 4 numbers of your bank account to be secure. Facial payment is strongly promoted by Alipay and WeChat because the potential benefit is huge. For example, shops can improve their services and products based on personal preference when you use facial payment. In addition, they can also provide personalized promotion and marketing.
While some people still concern the risks of privacy and security, the facial payment is a trend of mobile payment in the future. I had never seen the QR code would be really popular 5 years ago. But I believe facial payment will be widely used within 5 years in China.
Reference
Jao, N. (2019). A short history of the QR code in China and why Southeast Asia is next · TechNode. [online] TechNode. Available at: https://technode.com/2018/09/10/qr-code-payment-overseas-china/ [Accessed 8 Oct. 2019].
Hi Kuo! Thank you for this blog, it’s really interesting. Mobile payment is indeed becoming more and more popular, not just in China. I have never even have any cash on me. However, I have read that facial recognition is not completely safe yet and can be misled quite easily. This might slow down the growth of ‘facial payment’, as I personally wouldn’t like to pay with facial recognition knowing that it ‘only’ has a success rate of 99%. Moreover, it also raises the issue of privacy. Do you think people will adopt it given the fact that the data it gathers might be misused? As you state, it is not big yet, but it might be in the next five years. China is leading in this area, so who knows it might also be adopted in other countries. In any case, it definitely change the way we go out to buy things. Exciting to think about!