“Alibaba and Apple, whose bosses expressed an interest in marrying their respective mobile e-payments platforms last month, have moved from flirting to dating. Alibaba’s Alipay payments affiliate announced yesterday that it will allow users to authenticate their accounts with the iPhone’s fingerprint sensor instead of a password, indicating a deepening relationship between the two companies,” Adam Pasick reports for Quartz.
“Alipay, which has more than 300 million users, most of whom are in mainland China, said that the newly released version of its iOS app will allow iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus users to activate the fingerprint payment function immediately, according to a report by China Daily,” Pasick reports. “The new function would not necessarily require any new agreement between Alipay and Apple. The latest version of the iOS software allows third-party app developers to access the iPhones’ Touch ID fingerprint reader.”
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