Passkeys strong in China, but WeChat support is external only for now

WeChat has announced passkey support for its iOS app, bringing passwordless access to its users – but, for now, only those outside of China.

A brief from Apple Magazine says the feature will allow international users to sign in using Face ID, Touch ID, or their device passcode. WeChat’s parent company Tencent is “aligning the app with a broader industry shift toward passwordless authentication.”

In the global market for passkey technology, China represents a massive wedge of the pie, accounting for almost half of the world’s e-commerce transactions. Chinese banks embraced passkeys early, adopting FIDO technology in 2016, and FIDO’s 2024 Online Authentication Barometer shows passkey enablement in China up 80 percent year-over-year.

The success is the fruit of sustained efforts by FIDO to find a home for passkeys in the world’s second-most populated country. Last December, the FIDO Alliance China Working Group hosted a salon to discuss passkey applications and implementation.

The organization dedicated to passwordless living has made headway with passkey adoption across several government applications in China. FIDO standards are used for online tax declarations, digital signature authentication and mobile government services.

Yet, according to a report in Frontier Enterprise looking at passwordless access across the APAC region, the wider adoption of FIDO in China still faces a few hurdles. Awareness and acceptance among individual users is one. Implementation comes with costs and training, and the technical complexity of passwordless tech can make deployment, maintenance, and troubleshooting a challenge.

While banks have embraced passkeys, sectors less acutely aware of security threats “may need more time to evaluate and adopt this technology.”

One roadblock that could be solved as work on passkeys continues is technology standardization and compatibility. “Passwordless authentication necessitates a unified standard for cross-platform and cross-service compatibility,” says the report. “There are still some differences in the implementation of different FIDO standards, needing further standardization and coordination.”

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  China  |  FIDO Alliance  |  passkeys  |  passwordless authentication  |  Tencent