Smartphone maker Xiaomi and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's finance arm said on Thursday that they will jointly develop mobile payment systems using wearable technology aka Xiaomi Mi Band.
Xiaomi and an Alibaba affiliate which includes China's most popular online payment service Alipay, will enable the Alipay Wallet mobile app to link with Xiaomi's Mi Band smart fitness bracelet. That will let users smooth the process of making payments, bypassing the need for passwords.
The Alipay-Mi Band link will be made available on the current version of Alipay Wallet for Google's Android mobile OS, which runs on handsets including those of Xiaomi. The company also said the next version will be compatible with Apple Inc's iOS.
The encrypted link will avoid potential security difficulties s of near-field communications (NFC) technology, which has been criticised for potential vulnerability to theft and cyber attacks. Apple will use NFC to allow users to make payments on its Apple Watch, to be released this month, rather than on a phone.
Also see our last post: Micromax Canvas Unite 2 started getting Android 5.0 lollipop update