Paying With Your Face Will Go Mainstream?
Hey Payments Fanatic!
South Korea is one of few markets where payment by facial recognition is commercially available.
Korean FinTech company Toss is betting payment by facial recognition will go mainstream after it signed up nearly 10 per cent of the country’s population for its service.
Notably, Toss has achieved an adoption rate of nearly 66% among South Korea’s 51 million citizens.
Face scanners have been installed in about 330,000 retail outlets, mostly cafés, restaurants, and convenience stores.
The service allows users to pay with just a scan of their face after they register with the Toss app and verify their identity with a government-issued ID card.
Expanding facial recognition to Western regions brings a critical question to the forefront: security vs. convenience. Is the West ready to trade biometric data for seamless transactions? I’d love to hear your take, hit reply!
Keep scrolling to see what else is shaking up the payments world. 👇 Catch you in tomorrow's edition!
Cheers,
HOW PAYMENTS COMPANIES PERFORMED LAST WEEK
📈 Top 10 Payment Companies Listed on Stock Exchanges by Weekly Performance 📉
Here are the big movers of the week:
NEWS
🇵🇰 Cenoa and Noah have partnered to launch stablecoin-powered payment infrastructure for freelancers in Pakistan. The service offers instant USD and EUR accounts, zero-fee incoming payments, and stablecoin settlement aimed at reducing cross-border payment costs for digital workers. The rollout of Cenoa’s Pakistani integration will mark a critical milestone in the "stablecoinization" of global remittances.
🇦🇺 PhotonPay has officially launched a local Australian payment account. By leveraging its local clearing network and direct AUD receipt capabilities, PhotonPay further improves its localized payment network in the Asia-Pacific region, helping businesses enhance their localized operational efficiency and providing robust financial infrastructure support for global business expansion.
🇦🇺 This month, Airwallex introduced new ecommerce integrations for Salesforce Commerce Cloud and PrestaShop, alongside broader ERP connectivity through its Spend API. The company also added instant internal transfers and new FX rate-locking capabilities for businesses in Singapore.
🇭🇰 HSBC Hong Kong introduces Asia Pacific’s first World Legend Mastercard. The HSBC Privé World Legend Mastercard will bring Mastercard’s highest consumer credit tier to Asia Pacific. The invitation-only card includes travel, dining, entertainment, and airport lounge privileges globally. HSBC Privé cardholders will be upgraded from World Elite Mastercard to World Legend Mastercard, unlocking enhanced privileges under The Mastercard Collection.
🇦🇪 Mastercard has launched Built Small. Moving Strong, a regional resilience program across the Middle East designed to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as they navigate a challenging operating environment marked by supply chain disruption and tightening financial conditions. The initiative brings together banks, government entities, and ecosystem partners focused on digital tools, liquidity, and resilience.
🇺🇸 Ramp is reportedly in talks to raise $750M at a valuation exceeding $40B, less than six months after reaching a $32B valuation. The spend management startup has also been expanding its AI capabilities across fraud detection, policy controls, and treasury management. Read more
🇰🇷 Koreans flock to pay with their faces. South Korea’s Toss says nearly 5M users have adopted its FacePay service in just seven months, as facial-recognition payments gain traction across cafés, restaurants, and convenience stores. The FinTech now aims to replace physical credit cards within three years.
🇬🇧 The Professional Triathletes Organisation and Sokin signed a three-year partnership, naming the payments platform as the T100 Triathlon World Tour’s official business payments partner. PTO will also use Sokin’s infrastructure to manage cross-border payments and treasury operations. Continue reading
🇫🇷 ElevenLabs expands its use of Stripe to support new usage-based pricing plans as the voice AI company scales globally. The company now uses Stripe for billing, payments, subscriptions, marketplace payouts, tax automation, and AI agent-powered transactions. Continue reading
🇮🇳 Razorpay is scaling back its offline payments expansion as it prepares for an IPO, shifting focus toward its core online payments business. The company still operates around 600K PoS terminals, while processing more than $180B in annual GMV across its platform.
🇺🇸 Exodus launched XO Cash, which it describes as the first stablecoin built for AI agents. Developed on Solana with MoonPay, the product includes an SDK that lets developers create agent wallets tied to Exodus Pay balances while users retain custody of their keys.
🇳🇬 Stablecoin app MiniPay reached 15 million wallets, marking 123% year-on-year growth after surpassing 13 million by the end of 2025, according to Opera’s Q1 2026 report. Initially launched in Nigeria through Opera Mini, the app has become one of the most widely used stablecoin payment products focused on emerging markets, particularly in Africa.
GOLDEN NUGGET
💳 Do you think you know the history of Premium Cards? Check this out👇
From cardboard to metal, 75 years of payment innovation in one timeline:
🪙 1950 — Diners Club launches the first charge card. Cardboard. Manually imprinted.
💳 1969 — The magnetic stripe arrives. Plastic becomes the standard.
🔌 1974 — The embedded chip card is born. Electronic financial transactions become possible.
🏆 2003 — The metal card revolution begins. Ignited by the exclusive Black Card — by invitation only.
📱 2010s — Cards go contactless. Tap to pay starts reshaping how we transact.
🔵 2016 — Chase Sapphire Reserve launches. Metal goes mainstream. Consumer demand outpaced even the highest expectations.
🚀 2020s — FinTechs embrace metal cards. A physical touchpoint anchoring digital banking.
⚡ 2025 — Metal isn't a luxury anymore. It's a strategy.
New research from CompoSecure and Capuchin Behavioural Science, across 17 markets and 21,000+ consumers, shows the impact among high-value customers:
→ 87% of UHNWs would choose a metal card offer over a plastic one, even if rewards were identical → 72% use their metal card more than any other card in their wallet → 65% would be more likely to stay with their bank if it offered a metal card.
Metal cards also reshape how all customers perceive a bank, driving perceptions of innovation (74%), environmentally conscious (70%), cool (68%), prestigious (67%), and secure (64%).
For banks and FinTechs, this is about acquisition, spend, and retention, all in one product decision.
Source: Composecure
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