New | China’s tech giants Xiaomi and Alibaba partner on smart wristband for wireless payments

China's largest domestic smartphone brand Xiaomi has entered into a partnership with Alibaba subsidiary Alipay to create wearable payment devices, Xiaomi announced this week.

The partnership aims to create wearable devices that are linked to the users' identity so that they can make wireless payments with the wristband as well as a variety of other implementations such as opening hotel room doors or buying cinema tickets.

Huami, the Chinese start-up which makes wristbands for Xiaomi, said the device could be connected to many web-based service and act as a user's identity card.

When partnered with a smartphone app, users will not have to enter their passwords to make Alipay payments when they're wearing the wristband.

Every time a payment is made, the Alipay app would identify the wristband to check whether it is approved. Payment data transmitted through Bluetooth would be encrypted to ensure security, the company said.

If the wristband is lost, it would not be able to be paired with another smartphone until the owner of the band deactivates it, so other people would not be able to make payments from your account with your smart band.

Though that means if you lose both your wristband and your smartphone, whoever has them can easily make payments since passwords will not be needed.