以后可以用眼睛支付了？阿里巴巴斥資1億美元收購眼球掃描公司

阿里巴巴的支付子公司螞蟻金服近日已經收購了EyeVerify。后者是一家光學識別技術的廠商，其產品被富國銀行以及其他美國各地的地方銀行和信用社所使用。

彭博社報道稱，這次收購的價格約為7,000萬美元，不過熟知EyeVerify內情的消息人士表示這一數字并不準確，實際的收購價格為1億美元，而且是全現金交易。

這筆交易十分重要，部分原因在于隨著銀行開始尋找應對詐騙的新方法，生物識別工具——例如讓客戶用眼球登錄賬戶的眼球識別軟件，正變得越來越流行。

正如《財富》6月關于EyeVerify的一篇報告中指出的那樣，這項技術可以檢測客戶眼白處的血管，準確度高達99.8%，堪比指紋感應。銀行會把EyeVerify技術加入他們的應用中，讓用戶用眼球登錄賬號，查詢余額或是付款。

如今，EyeVerify成為了螞蟻金服的一部分，這讓他們有機會接觸到使用支付平臺支付寶（Alipay）的超過4.5億用戶，其中大部分來自中國。

在電話采訪中，EyeVerify的首席執行官托比·拉什表示：“現在，我的平臺比以前大得多。有螞蟻金服作為母公司，我們可以利用他們的資源和穩定性，把未來的發展規劃到20年以后?！?/p>

EyeVerify在美國的主要業務是個人銀行，與此不同的是，他們在中國的任務是認證支付寶P2P網絡上的支付，拉什認為這與貝寶（Paypal）很像。

拉什補充道，這筆交易已經得到了美國銀行業監管者的同意。盡管中國公司收購美國銀行業技術的核心公司可能會引發關于安全問題的擔憂，但拉什表示EveVerify沒有收集或儲存任何生物識別信息。整個眼球識別過程都在消費者的設備上完成。

與此同時，這家位于密蘇里州的公司還將保留全部團隊，繼續在當地發展。

“未來我們會繼續待在現在的堪薩斯城，讓公司的規模發展到兩倍、三倍于現在。管理層的所有人都會留下，整家公司也是一樣?！?/p>

EyeVerify成立于2012年，在被收購之前，他們已經募集了1,040萬美元的資金。(財富中文網)

譯者：嚴匡正

Alibaba’s payments arm, Ant Financial, has acquired EyeVerify, a maker of optical recognition technology used by Wells Fargo along with dozens of regional banks and credit unions across the country.

Bloomberg reported the purchase price as around $70 million, but a person close to EyeVerify says this is incorrect than that the actual amount was $100 million, and that it was an all-cash transaction.

The deal is significant partly because biometric tools such as eye-recognition software, which lets customers log into accounts with their eyes, are becoming mainstream as banks look for new ways to fight fraud.

As Fortune explained in a June feature about EyeVerify, the technology works by examining the blood vessels behind the whites of customers eyes’ and is reportedly as accurate as fingerprint sensors, which work 99.8% of the time. The banks deploy it by adding EyeVerify to their apps, allowing their clients to log in and do things like check balances and pay bills.

Now, being part of Ant Financial will give EyeVerify more access to the more than 450 million people, most of them in China, who use the online payments platform Alipay.

“Now, I have a much larger platform,” said EyeVerify CEO Toby Rush in a phone interview. “With Ant as a parent company, we can leverage their resources and stability to cast a vision that is 20 years long.”

Unlike in the U.S., where its primary business is consumer banking, EyeVerify’s role in China will be to authenticate payments on Alipay’s vast peer-to-peer network, which Rush likens to PayPal.

Rush added that the deal has already been approved by U.S banking regulators. While a Chinese company acquiring a key piece of U.S. banking technology may raise security concerns, Rush said EveVerify does not collect or store any biometric information. Instead the entire eye-authentication process takes place only on the customers’ device.

Missouri-based EyeVerify, meanwhile, will continue to pursue its course with the same team in place.

“The vision is we’re going to stay right here in Kansas City and double and triple the size of the company. All of the management will stay and the entire company will too.”

Prior to the acquisition, EyeVerify had raised around$10.4 million since it was founded in 2012.