PalmPay Lite – Our MVP That Shows You Can Pay Just with Your Hand 🖐💸

This is something I’ve been super excited about for a while now. If you’re into futuristic tech or fintech innovations, this is for you.

A few weeks ago, I came across an insane product by a startup called Five.id — they’re building a palm-based payment system. Yep, no phone, no card, no watch — just your hand. That single idea was so powerful and clean, I instantly felt like I needed to build something around it. Just to explore how this would work technically on Android.

So I went ahead and built a quick MVP that I’m calling PalmPay Lite.

👀 Watch It in Action

Here’s a quick demo of my MVP prototype doing palm detection and triggering a simulated payment in less than a second:

Yes, it’s that fast. And it actually works on a normal Android phone.

👋 So, What Exactly Is PalmPay Lite?

Let me be honest right off the bat — this is not a full-fledged payment app. I’m not building a wallet or UPI competitor here.

This is just an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to showcase the core idea:
Can we scan a palm in real-time, analyze it, and simulate a payment — in less than a second?

Turns out, yes. It’s fast. It works. And it feels magical.

🔧 Tech I Used to Build PalmPay Lite

This project let me play around with a bunch of exciting tools and techniques. Here’s what’s running under the hood:

🧠 Real-time Palm Detection with MediaPipe

For hand/palm recognition, I used Google’s MediaPipe Hand Landmarker. It detects 21 landmarks on the hand and works incredibly fast.

It also gave me the ability to overlay things like red skeletal lines and green dots to provide visual feedback when a hand is detected properly.

MediaPipe made this feel like a real biometric prototype — even though it’s still a simulation.

💻 Jetpack Compose for the UI

The UI is entirely built with Jetpack Compose — and honestly, it made everything way easier:

• Fast to build

• Clean, modern UI

• Responsive on all screen sizes

• Material Design 3 for that futuristic fintech look

🧱 MVVM + Repository Architecture

I followed a MVVM architecture with Repository pattern, which helps keep things modular, scalable, and testable.

It allowed me to cleanly separate logic, UI, and data layers — so if I want to expand this in the future, it’s super manageable.

🔐 Security Matters — Even in an MVP

I didn’t want to cut corners just because it’s a prototype. I made sure the user data is handled with production-level care.

• Biometric Login: Used Android’s native BiometricPrompt, so you can log in using fingerprint unlock.

• EncryptedSharedPreferences: Any sensitive info (like tokens, flags) is encrypted using AES-type encryption, backed by Android’s secure keystore.

⚙️ Background Tasks + CI/CD Ready

• WorkManager: Used to simulate background syncs, like offline transaction syncing.

• CI/CD Setup: While I haven’t automated everything end-to-end, the repo is structured to support a proper CI/CD pipeline. Every GitHub push can trigger automated builds/tests.

🇮🇳 Why This Could Be a Game-Changer for Indian Digital Payments

India is already leading the world with UPI and instant digital payments. But palm-based payments? That’s another level.

Think about it:

• No need for phones or cards

• No QR code scanning

• No PINs or OTPs

• Just a hand gesture = payment done

It could open doors to a whole new customer base — especially people without smartphones or those who struggle with digital literacy.

💰 This Tech Could Be Gold for Indian Fintech Giants

Honestly, if implemented at scale, palm payments can be huge for companies like:

👉 @Razorpay
👉 @GooglePayIndia (GPay)
👉 @PhonePe
👉 @Paytm
👉 @BharatPe
👉 @CRED
👉 @RuPay
👉 @BHIMUPI
👉 @NPCI

If anyone from these teams is reading this — this is your chance to jump into the next-gen of payments.

💻 Try It Out, Explore the Code

The entire project is open-sourced here:

👉 PalmPay Lite – GitHub Repo

It’s a playground — feel free to fork, explore, modify, or contribute.

📩 Contact: praveen@codewithpk.com

🙏 Big Thanks to Five.id

None of this would’ve happened without Five.id. You guys planted the idea. You’re building something amazing. This MVP is my small tribute to that concept. Thank you for the inspiration!

🧠 Final Words

PalmPay Lite was one of the most exciting side projects I’ve built recently. It’s fast, secure, and futuristic — even in its current MVP form.

Let’s keep pushing boundaries. Let’s build the future of payments — not with just phones and cards — but with a single gesture.

Made with ❤️ by codewithpk.com
Keep exploring. Keep building.