Biometrics

JPMorgan Chase is planning to test new technology that would let consumers pay with their palms or faces at certain U.S. merchants.

Mastercard has begun to trial a biometric payment system for brick-and-mortar stores, using facial recognition rather than contactless cards, smartphones or memorable PINs.

The bank is piloting fingerprint-reading cards that work with existing payment terminals. Its goals are to strengthen security for large transactions and to inform future deployments in other markets.

The payments technology provider is adding a handprint biometric digital ID to its authentication system through a partnership with the French fintech A3BC.

The Faster Identity Online Alliance has established its first user-experience guidelines and delivered new standards designed to more quickly move authentication processes past traditional username-and-password combinations.

Citing the risk of bias and misidentification, cities and civil liberties groups are calling more loudly for a ban on the use of face scans.

The e-commerce giant's Amazon One palm-scanning can enroll consumers for building access and other use cases that require an ID.

With mobile payments and banking apps on the rise, biometric authentication is now increasingly common in consumer finance, says Fingerprints' Michel Roig.

With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic prompting more consumers to use contactless payments, the U.K.’s banks have lobbied for higher contactless payments limits, a move which could benefit the biometrics payments industry.

Biometric authentication has always been a challenging subject with consumers, who are accustomed to using the technology to unlock their phones but are still wary about how much personal information they share with retailers and card issuers.

U.S. financial institutions should prepare for potential new regulations around data privacy and protection, digital identity verification and the use of biometrics, says OneSpan's Michael Magrath.

The widespread shift to e-commerce and touchless payments during the pandemic has escalated fraud risk in those channels, including the possibility of fraudsters combining altered photos with synthetic ID, Experian warns.

With the advances in technology and digitization, and evolving security threats, it’s time for smarter, more robust authentication methods, says Entersekt's Dewald Nolte.

A pleasing look, or even allowing consumers to design their own cards, can help build brand and uptake, says Fingerprints' Lina Andolf-Orup.

Finland’s OP Financial has announced that it will be launching a biometric payment card pilot in the Nordic countries in the second half of 2021.

Before bringing biometrics to any new payment form factor, careful consideration is needed to ensure the technology can be seamlessly integrated into the existing infrastructure, while maintaining the highest levels of security, says Fingerprints' Henrick Nilsson.

Four global banks have joined American Express Ventures in contributing to BioCatch’s Series C fundraising round and earning themselves seats on its newly formed Client Innovation Board.

Amazon's palm-reading payment system is the sort of product that could probably succeed only at this point in time.

Biometric cards have garnered more attention in recent times through various trials, but the coronavirus pandemic looks set to accelerate their adoption with a series of major card issuers beginning to roll out the technology.

Trust in biometrics solves the major obstacle to even wider contactless adoption: contactless spending limits, says Fingerprints' Christian Frederickson.