PayPal and Samsung are collaborating on a payments system that uses fingerprint authentication for mobile shopping, the two companies announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Samsung also launched its fifth-generation Samsung Galaxy S5, which includes a fingerprint scanner, at the industry exhibition.

PayPal will be the first global payments company to support Samsung's mobile fingerprint-authentication technology, the two companies said.

Starting in April, PayPal's fingerprint authentication will be available on the Samsung Galaxy S5 in 26 markets, including Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.

"With a simple swipe of a finger, consumers can securely log into their PayPal account to shop and pay with the convenience that mobile devices afford," Hill Ferguson, PayPal's chief product officer, said in a statement.

The collaboration between PayPal and Samsung is the first implementation from the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, an industry consortium delivering standards for simpler, stronger authentication. The software that communicates between the fingerprint sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S5 and PayPal's service in the cloud is FIDO-ready.

PayPal provides a secure wallet in the cloud and doesn't store personal information on the mobile device, the company said. The only information the device shares with PayPal is a unique encrypted key that allows PayPal to verify the identity of the customer without having to store any biometric information on PayPal's servers.

"We think consumers will be wary about PayPal's biometric service and need some convincing due to security concerns," Eden Zoller, a principal analyst at research firm Ovum, commented. "On the positive side, Samsung is a hugely popular smartphone brand with global reach, while PayPal is a trusted payments service provider. This is a powerful combination."