(Yicai Global) June 29 -- Shenzhen-based China Merchants Bank has introduced its proprietary facial recognition payment system at telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies' headquarters in the same city.

CMB's face-scan payment system supports its own bank cards, as well as China UnionPay debit, and credit cards issued by 20-plus other banks. Users need only download the CMB app and link their cards to their accounts to enable payment. They can then pay via facial recognition at any coffee shop or restaurant at Huawei's headquarters without using a smartphone, state news agency Xinhua reported.

A camera at the cash register scans customers' faces, identifying them within one second. The latter then pay by entering their phone numbers registered when activating the mobile banking services. The entire process takes just seconds.

The system, which uses three-dimensional facial recognition technology and a corresponding algorithm, is very secure, and forestalls the possibility of people masquerading as others by using photos or videos, CMB said. The error rate is lower than 0.00001. It can even accurately identify twins.

The bank is also working on applying biometric identification, augmented reality and virtual reality, natural language processing and deep learning in product development, risk management, customer services, and its other operations.

Editor: Ben Armour