Tencent joins Visa to facilitate palm payments in Singapore

By Gloria Mathias

Tencent has announced a partnership with Visa to introduce its palm recognition technology for digital payments in international markets.

The service will first be rolled out in Singapore, where Visa cardholders from participating banks, including DBS, OCBC, and UOB, will participate in the pilot program.

This partnership was unveiled at the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF), where participants could try out the Pay by Palm solution at Tencent and Visa booths. Pilot users can pay with their palms at Alchemist, a café in Singapore, with expansion plans to be announced soon.

Yang Wenhui, General Manager at Tencent Financial Technology APAC, announced the partnership on the first day of the SFF. Mr. Yang introduced the principles and advantages of Tencent Palm’s palm recognition technology, showcasing Tencent Palm’s innovation in user experience and technology application and its commitment to data security and privacy compliance.

Through its wholly-owned subsidiary in Singapore, Tencent SenseTech Pte. Ltd., Tencent will provide a series of diversified services, such as technical support, to clients from various industries and comply with data localisation requirements. Tencent is also open to collaborating with clients and partners from multiple sectors to jointly explore the application of palm recognition technology in more use cases.

Participating pilot users will have to do a one-time enrolment at the merchant point of sale, where they will be invited to tap their Visa card, scan their palm, and complete a one-time authentication to enrol. They can then use their palms to pay subsequently. Once they have enrolled, a Visa payment token will be bound to their palm biometric template, allowing them to make future payments at participating merchants by simply waving their palms; no cards or phones are required.

Tencent has developed hardware and software that can recognise individual palms in extreme lighting conditions. Tencent Palm features a two-step process that verifies palm prints and unique patterns of veins under the skin, ensuring highly accurate readings. Furthermore, user data is encrypted for storage in an irreversible manner, preventing decryption, theft, or reuse by other third parties.