Alibaba, the parent company of China-based mobile payment service Ant Financial (Alipay), plans to make major investments in biometric tech.Ant Financial, which has been tasked with growing Alipay, raised $4.5 bn last week in what is being described as the world's largest private tech investment round.According to Ant Financial, “this new round of funding will support Ant Financial in its goal to expand access to financial services in China's rural areas, while also fueling the company's globalization.”The company also added that the capital raised in the Series B round will be invested partly in further development of the company's cloud computing infrastructure and biometric verification technologies.Alipay has focused on facial recognition for its payment services, with Alibaba chairman Jack Ma showcasing the technology at events last year.Ant Financial has grown from Alipay, which provides payment services for e-commerce marketplaces, to become a comprehensive and open ecosystem providing financial services ranging from payments, wealth management and insurance to micro loans for small and micro enterprises and individual consumers.

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