Alibaba Affiliate Ant Financial Acquires EyeVerify to Boost Trust, Security, and Convenience of Mobile Financial Transaction. Together the companies will leverage Eyeprint IDTM technology to accelerate the adoption of secure mobile payments worldwide.
Ant Financial Services Group, the world’s leading online and mobile financial services provider and operator of Alipay, announced the acquisition of EyeVerify, Inc., the creator of Eyeprint IDTM, a patented, secure mobile eye verification technology. The acquisition furthers Ant Financial’s mission to increase user trust and safety in financial transactions worldwide and allows EyeVerify to draw on greater resources to advance its technology.
Earlier this year, Ant Financial and EyeVerify entered into a licensing agreement in which Eyeprint ID was integrated into Ant Financial’s payment authentication platform. Today’s acquisition will allow the technology to be integrated into even more Ant Financial products and secure hundreds of millions of consumers’ online data and transactions.
EyeVerify will also continue to grow its global customer base, and aims to provide financial institutions worldwide with the identity and authentication technology they need to expand their services and meet the needs of increasingly mobile customers.
Eyeprint ID eliminates the need for traditional authentication methods like passwords by transforming an ordinary selfie into a “key” that protects consumers’ digital lives, including their mobile transactions. It is highly accurate, easy to use, and prevents spoof attacks with proprietary technology that can recognize the difference between a real person and an image or video.
An Eyeprint contains the visible veins and other unique micro features in and around the eye and are highly complex and unique to every individual. They can never be lost, stolen, or intercepted because the technology scrambles and encrypts the Eyeprint data locally – so it never leaves the device. EyeVerify currently has 17 U.S. patents issued and 15 more patents pending to continue to expand on the technology. EyeVerify will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ant Financial and continue to be based in Kansas City.
About EyeVerify: Unlock every opportunity with Eyeprint ID – created by EyeVerify Inc. One look opens mobile devices, logs you into apps and secures your mobile payments. Eyeprint ID transforms an ordinary selfie into a key that protects your digital life. This patented, software-only biometric solution is 99.99% accurate and extremely scalable. In less than one second, with no add-on hardware, employees and customers will experience password-free mobility. Several large Android device manufacturers and more than a dozen financial institutions have deployed Eyeprint ID, delivering convenient, secure, private authentication to millions of consumers today. Visit eyeverify.com today to learn more.
Source: EyeVerify
Accoriding to an article in Forbes this is Ant Financial’s first investment in the U.S. and the company plans to use EyeVerify’s technology to upgrade its own security systems and integrate this technology in several of its products. Alibaba’s payment gateway Alipay is the most important offering of Ant Financial and has nearly 450 million active users, dominating the Chinese payment market. While global expansion has been on Alibaba’s agenda for some time, introducing a product in the U.S. requires not only a better understanding of the market, but the achievement of the quality, security and service standards expected by U.S. consumers. We believe that, as Alipay expands beyond China into regions such as India and Europe (for Chinese tourists), better security features can lead to faster adaption of this product. Once the company establishes trust in regions outside China, Alibaba can eventually look at launching a product in the U.S.
Source: Forbes
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