Tech China Post #93

It is reported that China Securities Regulatory Commission will explore how to transform current initial public offering process both to attract more technology companies to list in Mainland China and to make the IPO process more rigorous. (link)

Baidu has been granted another 20 licenses to test its autonomous vehicles. This increases Baidu’s total number of licenses to test autonomous vehicles in China to 50, making Baidu the dominant R&D player domestically. In parallel, Baidu has partnered with Unity, an U.S. company, to perform real-time simulation of autonomous vehicles.(link)

WeChat is introducing the “Stories” feature. The “Stories” feature, allowing short personal content to stream for a limited period of time inside the social platform, was made popular by Snapchat. The same time-capsule feature was adopted and made successful by Instagram.(link)

Alibaba will launch payment hardware and software to enable facial recognition payment solution. The solution will capture, identify and verify facial features of the individual and allow the individual to make secure payments. Alibaba will pilot this facial recognition payment solution at a bakery shop in Beijing. (link)

Ant Financial, the financial arm of Alibaba, is reportedly in talks to acquire UK-based cross-border payment provider WorldFirst. The acquisition would allow Ant Financial to expand beyond its more than 400 million user base to Sydney, Austalia, and key regions in Europe. WorldFirst processes more than $60 billion a year specializing in cross-border money transfers. (link)