Facial recognition technology is rapidly emerging as a transformative force in the digital payments landscape. By linking biometric authentication with financial transactions, it offers a frictionless, contactless payment experience that balances convenience and security.
Recently, at Japan’s 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, NEC showcased a comprehensive facial recognition system designed for cashless transactions and visitor access management. Similarly, Mastercard has introduced its Payment Passkey Service in Latin America, partnering with Sympla and Yuno to provide more secure and convenient e-commerce interactions.
The adoption of facial recognition payment (FRP) systems is gaining traction across both retail and banking sectors. In China, Alipay’s “Smile to Pay” system allows customers to complete in-store transactions simply by smiling at a terminal. In the United States, PopID’s PopPay platform enables face-based payments via dedicated kiosks. This technology holds the promise of transforming customer interactions by reducing transaction times and enhancing fraud prevention. By replacing traditional security measures such as passwords and PINs with reliable biometric identifiers, it redefines how users interact with payment systems.
In this article, we explore the patenting activity related to facial recognition in digital payments and examine patents that highlight the underlying technologies driving this innovation.
Facial Recognition Payment: Patenting Activity
Since 2015, patent filings related to FRPs have shown a steady and significant rise, reflecting growing industry interest and innovation in this space. Alibaba first demonstrated the technology during a trade fair in 2015, and in 2017, launched the world’s first FRP system—Smile to Pay—at a fast food restaurant in Hangzhou, China. Users could pay by scanning their face and entering a phone number linked to their Alipay account. China has rapidly embraced FRPs across shops, supermarkets, and restaurants. In 2019, Tencent introduced the Frog Pro, a facial recognition POS device, and is integrated with WeChat’s ecosystem. Additionally, China UnionPay unveiled its own FRPt system at the 2019 World Internet Conference in Beijing.
The trend accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove demand for contactless and hygienic transactions. PayByFace launched its FRP at a coffee chain in Romania using an iPad to scan faces and complete payments in seconds. In 2021, Korea’s T-Money piloted a FRP system in Seoul’s public transit network. Users could link their payment methods through the T-Money mobile application and register their face by making a biometric selfie. More recently, in 2024, J.P. Morgan Payments expanded its partnership with PopID to roll out biometric payment kiosks across various U.S. merchants.
Facial Recognition Payment: Top Jurisdictions
China leads by a significant margin when it comes to patenting the technology with 1007 patents filed in total. It is then followed by Korea (64), the United States (64), Japan (55), and India (55). This dominance stems from China’s early adoption of facial recognition in payment systems, well before the onset of the pandemic.
Facial Recognition Payment: Top Assignees
The majority of the top players in this space are based in China. Bank of China currently leads in FRPs based on the number of patent applications, followed by Advanced New Technologies, which is based in the United Kingdom. Shenzhen Yishi Technology ranks third, followed by Tencent Technology Shenzhen and Alipay Hangzhou Information Technology.
Facial Recognition Payment: Top Law Firms
The top law firms to handle the filings on the technology are from Asia. Majority of the firms are from China with Beijing Sanyou Intellectual Property Agency Ltd., Beijing Bestipr Intellectual Property Law Corp., and Scihead IP Law Firm as the top three representatives of the country. Aju Kim Chang & Lee on the other hand leads filings in Korea.
Facial Recognition Payment: Top Technology Areas
The majority of innovations fall under G06Q, which covers software systems used in business, finance, and payment processing, reflecting the role of facial recognition in enabling secure, seamless transactions. This is followed by G06V, which involves image and video recognition technologies essential for detecting and verifying users’ faces during payments. G06F relates to general data processing, including how facial data is stored, managed, and protected across devices and systems.
Other areas include G06N for AI models that improve face recognition, and H04L, which addresses the secure transmission of facial data during digital transactions. Additional classifications such as G06K focus on scanning and handling visual media, while G07F, G07G, and G07C pertain to physical payment systems like kiosks, vending machines, or point-of-sale terminals using facial recognition payments.
Together, these technology areas show how FRPs rely on a multi-layered stack of innovations, from front-end face detection to backend security and payment processing, driving a contactless, user-friendly transaction experience.
Simplifying payments with facial ID tokens
In today’s digital payment world, users often have to enter their details like usernames, passwords, and payment info at each merchant they use. This repetitive process is time-consuming, tedious, and can lead to abandoned transactions, ultimately affecting sales for merchants.
U.S. Patent No. 11,769,152 by Mastercard addresses this problem by introducing a streamlined system for verifying users during transactions using facial recognition. Instead of managing credentials for each merchant, the system allows users to enroll just once via an application that captures a facial image, liveliness data, and payment information. This data is sent to an identity platform that generates a secure user identification (ID) token linking the facial template with the payment account.
During future transactions, the user’s device can verify their identity by matching a live facial image against the stored face ID template in the token. If the match is successful, the system authenticates the user and approves the payment. This eliminates the need for repeated data entry and simplifies the checkout process for both consumers and merchants.
The patent, titled “Verifying user identities during transactions using identification tokens that include user face data”, was filed on May 1, 2020 and was granted on September 26, 2023. Barta, Jones PLCC represented Mastercard during the patent filing. The listed inventor is Rakesh Kumar.
Quick, secure payments using face and posture recognition
Current mobile payment methods such as QR codes or NFC often require users to manually authenticate themselves using passwords, fingerprints, or by launching specific applications. This multi-step process can be time-consuming and error-prone, particularly when users must hold their phones steadily near a terminal or navigate through app interfaces to complete a transaction. Even existing facial recognition systems typically demand manual initiation, reducing their overall efficiency.
Huawei’s U.S. Patent No. 11,568,411, titled “Facial recognition-based payment method, apparatus, and terminal”, introduces a more seamless and automated approach to mobile authentication. The system enables a mobile device to initiate a payment via NFC or QR code scanning, while intelligently determining whether the phone’s posture and orientation relative to the terminal are suitable for facial recognition. If these conditions are met, the device autonomously captures the user’s facial image and performs identity verification, streamlining the transaction without requiring further user interaction.
The system integrates various biometric methods within the mobile device including facial, fingerprint, iris, and voice recognition which are enhanced by the coordinated use of front and rear cameras. By combining secure biometric verification with context-aware positioning, the invention significantly improves the user experience, offering a faster, more intuitive, and secure mobile payment process.
The patent was filed on May 3, 2018 and was granted on January 31, 2023. It was represented by Conley Rose, P.C. with Xiaona Zhao, Chen Dong, and Xinmiao Chang listed as the inventors.
Streamlining checkout with automatic user recognition
Current in-store payment methods often require users to manually interact with a terminal such as by tapping a phone, swiping a card, or entering account details. Even digital wallet apps usually need the user to unlock their device and confirm the payment.
Google addresses this challenge by introducing a facial recognition-based payment system that enables consumers to complete transactions without taking out a card or device. When a user enters a merchant location, their smartphone detects a merchant beacon and shares its identifier with a central payment processing system.
The system then transmits facial templates of nearby, signed-in users to the merchant’s camera. As the user is recognized via live facial capture, the merchant’s point-of-sale system displays eligible accounts associated with the identified user. A transaction is initiated and authorized automatically, requiring no further input from the user.
U.S. Patent No. 12,307,432, titled “Identifying consumers in a transaction via facial recognition”, was filed on May 23, 2023, and was granted on May 20, 2025. Dority & Manning P.A. represented Google in the patent filing. The listed inventors are Sashikanth Chandrasekaran, Dmitry Kalenichenko, and Timothy Raymond Zwiebel.
The future of facial recognition payment systems
With continued advancements and widespread adoption, facial biometric authentication is set to become a core component of next-generation financial systems. As the technology matures, paying with a glance and a smile may soon become routine. Industry forecasts project a 113.6% market growth for global biometric payments between 2024 and 2028. Looking ahead, the focus will shift towards refining the user experience and ensuring that these systems deliver speed, security, and convenience needed in an increasingly digital economy.
