September 2, 2014 - China's Alipay has teamed up with handset maker Huawei to develop a system which lets people make mobile payments with their fingerprints.

Taking advantage of the fingerprint reader built into Huawei's upcoming Mate 7 handset, users of Alipay's hugely popular Wallet app will be able to confirm transactions with a swipe of their digit, making passwords obsolete.

The firms say that the biometric data is encrypted and that only approved third-party apps will have access to the information for transactions.

The system is similar to one recently developed by PayPal for Samsung's Galaxy S5 phone. Meanwhile, Apple is expected to make the most of its Touch ID reader for its push into mobile NFC payments with next week's iPhone 6 launch.

According to Bloomberg, agreements with Visa, MasterCard and American Express have been reached for a wallet that will let customers make instore payments with the touch of a finger.