Facial recognition is springing up in payment industry of China in year 2019. 
The market continues to heat up after People's Bank of China announced to 
support exploration of facial recognition application in payment industry in 
August 2019. Various payment institutions (Union Pay, Alipay and WeChat Pay), 
POS hardware manufacturers, OEM mobile phone manufactures, etc have ambitiously 
followed this innovative payment trend and launched their own products.

Chain Relations Finance Media (CRFM) has noticed, in the current market, each 
payment institution (UnionPay, WeChat Pay and Alipay) has its own hardware 
device to process respective facial recognition payment. In other words, on top 
of existing hardware to process QR code payments, merchants need to install 
additionally three different devices to enable facial recognition payments of 
UnionPay, WeChat Pay and Alipay respectively. Unfortunately such development 
barrier poses a number of pain points to various participants:

1. Huge hardware cost pressure (to banks and merchants); 
2. Cumbersome and unfriendly operation process (to merchants and users);  
3. Unnecessary setup space occupancy (to merchants).

In visiting various merchants and researching the situation of payment 
acceptance, CRFM has found some merchants having adopted one single hardware to 
complete facial recognition payments (UnionPay and WeChat Pay) and also QR code 
payments (UnionPay, WeChat Pay and Alipay). The hardware is provided by a local 
acquiring bank, and after diving deeper in the technology used by the bank, 
CRFM has discovered that the bank is using the middle software provided by 
Shenzhen Taotaogu Information Technology Co., Ltd. (SZ TTG) (ASX ticker : FTC).

Integrated Facial Recognition Payments Lead The Tide

CRFM has interviewed SZ TTG regarding its view and development in the payment 
trend in China. In early November 2019, SZ TTG is the first to launch an 
integrated facial recognition payment solution - "Flounder" using one single 
hardware to complete both facial recognition payments (UnionPay and WeChat Pay) 
and QR code payments (UnionPay, WeChat Pay and Alipay). "Flounder" offers 
stunning merits: (1) Saving hardware cost; (2) Streamlined operation/payment 
process; and (3) Less space occupancy. 

CRFM realises that SZ TTG is currently serving more than 700 banks and over 5 
million merchants in China by its patented T-LinxTM Middle Software for banks. 
The T-LinxTM powered banks export such fintech middle software capability to 
their various merchants, seamlessly connecting merchants' operation system with 
integrated payment solutions in low cost. Moreover, T-LinxTM is furnished with 
consolidated transaction data with one unified statement and real-time data 
management (SaaS) for merchants, and many other state-of-art industry 
applications. 

The promotion of the giant institutions/corporates, the follow-up of government 
supervision, the excitement of the industry, and the questioning of the public 
are all very similar to the market situation when the QR code payment was 
becoming popular. CRFM believes that integrated facial recognition payment will 
be the next development tide after QR code payment.

SOURCE:  CRFM Explores Fintech Trend: Facial Recognition Payment in China