PayPal releases payment app with Samsung Galaxy S5 fingerprint-reader support

PayPal, a popular electronic payment solution, has announced its certified fingerprint-based authentication system for the Galaxy S5 is now available in 25 countries. In the meanwhile, the Alibaba Group is said to be looking into enabling the fingerprint-based authentication for its own payment platform, AliPay, within the quarter.

PayPal had announced its certification of Samsung's Galaxy S5 fingerprint at MWC. The company, in a blog post on Friday by Hill Ferguson, Chief Product Officer, however did not list the 25 countries.

The company also announced the release of the PayPal app for the Gear 2 and Gear Fit wearable devices. The app will give information on balance check, payment notifications and saving offers from local businesses to the users.

With the PayPal certification for the Samsung Galaxy S5, users can authorise payments and perform other transactions via their PayPal accounts by simply swiping their finger on the Galaxy S5's home button, which features the fingerprint sensor.

The introduction of this new fingerprint-based transaction technology is said to eliminate the cumbersome process of logging in via typing usernames and passwords by the users. Moreover, the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone is also the first handset to incorporate FIDO authentication, a standard set by an alliance of companies such as Google, Microsoft, MasterCard and Lenovo.

"Customers can use their finger to pay with PayPal from their new Samsung Galaxy S5 because the FIDO Ready software on the device securely communicates between the fingerprint sensor on their device and PayPal's service in the cloud. The only information the device shares with PayPal is a unique encrypted key that allows PayPal to verify the identity of the customer without having to store any biometric information on PayPal's servers," stated John Lunn from PayPal Developer Network.

Besides PayPal, Alibaba, an e-commerce website, is said to be looking to incorporate fingerprint-based payment technology for the Galaxy S5.

The reports coming from China (via GSMArena) suggest that the e-commerce website will allow its third-party online payment platform, AliPay, to make payments and also let users to confirm product satisfaction before paying to the seller. The feature is said to be released in this quarter itself.

Reports also indicate that AliPay has been already tested on devices like Apple iPhone 5s and HTC One Max, both of which come with a fingerprint scanner