A visitor tries a virtual reality (VR) gadget at Alibaba's Taobao Maker Festival at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center on July 21, 2016, in Shanghai. (Photo : Getty Images)
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is working on virtual-reality-enabled mobile payment to gain an advantage in the future VR-driven shopping and the booming digital payment market over its rival Tencent Holdings Ltd.
The e-commerce giant told China Daily on Monday, Aug. 8, that the technology it is developing would enable users to make payments in a 3D virtual world and to log in payment accounts by making body gestures such as nodding their heads.
The announcement came after Alibaba presented a preview of the Buy+ virtual store where consumers can hold, feel and try on products in a 360-degree virtual environment using a VR headset and twohand-controllers.
But consumers cannot use the VR payment just yet, according to Alibaba's financial arm, Ant Financial.
"Consumers of Buy+ can shop in a virtual world, but they will still have to take their headsets off and go back to the real world to pay bills," Ant Financial said. "We are working on the VR-driven payment tool to offer a real immersive and complete VR shopping experience," it added.
Alibaba however, did not say when the new technology will be launched but an employee was quoted as saying that it could possibly be released by the end of September, yicai.com, a local media site, reported.
Data from Analysys International showed that more than 5.9 trillion yuan ($885.8 billion) worth of transactions were handled by third-party mobile payment tools in China in the first quarter of 2016, an increase of 110 percent from a year earlier.
According to the data, Alibaba got 63 percent of the market share to lead the industry, while Tencent's WeChat Payment followed with 23 percent.
Developing VR-enabled payment tools is not easy as security must be ensured while making it easy for users, experts said.
It is not also easy to convince shoppers and sellers to use the tools, Li Chao, an analyst at research firm iResearch Consulting Group, said.
"The VR industry is still in infant stage. VR games are still a niche, let alone VR payment. Also when it comes to financial payments, consumers value security more than just being cool," Li said.
