Forget the QR code. Facial recognition could be the next big thing for payments in China

Scanning a barcode to make payments in China could soon be a thing of the past, as technology giants such as Tencent are now studying the use of facial and fingerprint recognition for such transactions. Most people in China pay using their mobile phones to scan QR codes — a type of barcode system. They do so via the two most popular mobile payment platforms: Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba’s payments arm Alipay.