A British tourist was left amazed by cutting-edge technology in China after using his palm to pay for a packet of chips at a convenience store.
The new technology, dubbed PalmPay, enables people to make payments by simply hovering their hands over a sensor equipped with an infrared camera.
This sensor analyses both the unique palm print and the vein pattern beneath the skin, allowing for secure and convenient palm-print payments.
Travelling couple Ben and Reanne Dridge experienced the futuristic technology during a visit to Zhuhai, China, and shared a video on social media.
‘We’re in China, and this is how advanced the cashless payment is in this country,’ Mr Dridge said in the clip, which has recorded more than two million views.
At the counter, Mr Dridge hovered his palm over a terminal and paid for a packet of chips without tapping his debit card, phone or using cash.
‘Wherever you are in the world, you can pay with your palm print,’ Ms Dridge said.
‘How clever is that? It’s literally one of the best things I’ve ever seen.’
Mr Dridge added: ‘China is living so far in the future it’s uncomprehendable.’
Travellers who do not want to use the technology still have the option to pay via card, their phone or cash.
Tencent, the developer of the tech, is confident it will become more mainstream.
The palm technology can also be used to unlock doors at homes and workplaces, as well as to pay for public transport.
‘The application scenarios can be a little different,’ Guo Rizen of Tencent told CNN. ‘We’re hoping that palm payments can save people the trouble of carrying physical items, so that our lives become more convenient.’
However, security experts warn that the system could face major security risks.
‘Retailers get hacked all the time. When most retailers get hacked, at worst you have to change your credit card number,’ Surveillance Technology Oversight Project executive director, Albert Fox Cahn, previously told the MIT Technology Review.
‘But you can’t change your palm print if that gets compromised.
‘So we look at this as a way for people to potentially save a couple of minutes in line at the price of their biometric privacy for the rest of their lives.’
Edward Santow, a professor of responsible technology at UTS, also offered some words of caution.
‘When your personal information is hoovered up at a huge scale, that creates a kind of honey pot for cybercriminals.
‘And if that information is obtained illegally, it can then be sold on the black market and it can cause you enormous problems.’
