Tag: alibaba

Alibaba introduces new security feature to its popular Alipay application

Alibaba, one of China’s largest online retailers, has begun working to make mobile payments safer for consumers. The company’s Alipay application has become quite popular with those interested in mobile shopping, but consumers are beginning to express concern over the security of the platform. Because Alipay trafficks a large amount of financial information between consumers and businesses, the application’s ability to protect this information is quite important. In order to ensure that this information is safe, Alibaba has introduced a new feature to Alipay.

Alipay will now be able to scan fingerprints

The Alipay application is now capable of scanning fingerprints when it is used to make a payment. This feature is currently only available on the iOS platform because the latest iteration’s of the iPhone are equipped with biometric technology. This technology allows a mobile device to scan a fingerprint, which adds a new layer of security that is difficult to break through. Alibaba believes that fingerprints could be the key to truly secure mobile payments.

New feature may be well received among mobile shoppers

The new feature will allow users to authenticate a transaction with nothing more than their fingerprint. Transactions made in this way have a limit of $162 per day. If consumers want to spend more than that, they will have to enter in their account information manually as they typically do with Alipay. Financial information is used locally, without uploading any information to a third party. This ensures that the information being sent by a consumer is kept safe.

Demand for secure mobile services continues to rise among consumers and businesses alike

Alibaba has already establish a strong presence in the mobile commerce market. The company is managed to beat competition from others that are looking to establish themselves in the mobile world as well. Increasing the security of the Alipay application may help Alibaba find yet more success in the mobile space. Demand for secure mobile commerce services has been on the rise among consumers for some time.

Alipay, the Alibaba smartphone payments arm, released a report to describe these digital shopping trends.

In China, the trend in mobile commerce has been a rapid growth this year, according to a report that was released by the smartphone based payments branch of Alibaba, Alipay.

The report detailed the way in which the less developed western region of China has driven mobile shopping.

The Alipay report showed that over half of the online transactions that occurred at Alibaba over the first ten months of the year occurred over mobile commerce. In fact, mobile phones were responsible for 54 percent of the online transactions using Alipay from January through the end of October. Comparatively, throughout all of last year, it had represented a much lower 22 percent of total online payments volume for purchases made online through the service.

The western, inland parts of China are easily the fastest growing areas being seen for mobile commerce.

The Tibet autonomous region, the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, and the province of Shaanxi were identified as the areas where mobile commerce was taking off most rapidly, at 62.2 percent, 58.3 percent, and 59.6 percent, respectively. Those areas are quite remote and lack a solid infrastructure of broadband internet service. Desktop and laptop computers are also still quite expensive there, making them less appealing than the far more affordable smartphone.

On the other hand, Guangdong province and the cities of Shanghai and Beijing, all well developed areas, saw growth of a much lower 27, 24, and 29 percent during that same period of time when it came to mobile shopping transactions.

According to expert in online shopping and the vice president of greater China for hybris AG (the enterprise software provider division of SAP AG software giant, based in Germany), Burghardt Groeber, who commented on this mobile commerce trend, “As mobile penetration in rural China far outpaces fixed-line Internet penetration and with continued upgrades to mobile network connectivity and the popularity of new devices, it is natural that consumers are rapidly taking up mobile shopping.” In China m-commerce is expected to reach $162 billion by the close of 2017.