Alipay rolls out world’s first ‘Smile to Pay’ facial recognition system at KFC outlet in Hangzhou

Ant Financial, which operates the Alipay electronic payment platform used in Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall online shopping sites, has rolled out the world’s first commercial application of a payment system that identifies payers using facial-recognition technology.

At KPRO, a new KFC restaurant that serves salads, paninis and fresh juice instead of deep-fried chicken in Alibaba’s home base of Hangzhou, customers can authenticate their payments by having their faces scanned.

The “Smile to Pay” application takes just one to two seconds to recognise and identify a face, which follows the scan with a second verification through a mobile phone, according to Ant Financial. The technology is fully insured, and users of Alipay can disable or enable the feature any time.

A video provided by Ant Financial, which bought a stake in the China-based KFC and Pizza Hut fast food restaurants business last year from Yum! Brands for US$460 million along with Primavera Capital, shows customers being accurately identified, even though they were in disguise using make-up or wearing wigs.

“Combined with 3D cameras and likeness detection algorithm, ‘Smile to Pay’ can effectively block spoofing attempts using other people’s photos or video recordings,” said Chen Jidong, Ant Financial’s director of biometric identification technology.