Paying for things with your finger. And it’s being called Fingopay (Vein recognition technology).The Fingopay system is currently being trailed by Visa Europe Collab and biometrics startup Sthaler. It uses the unique arrangement of veins and their systolic information in the finger to recognise the individual. This is recognised using near infrared light.
“Fingopay is a cloud-based cardholder identification solution that secures payments that benefit both the merchant and customer,” Visa Europe Collab says. “At the POS, all you need is your finger. Employees taking part in the trial will be able to register their Visa credit or debit card to their finger vein template, which is encrypted and stored securely.
“When paying for an item in the staff restaurant, authentication will occur via the use of a FVT reader referenced against tokenized biometric data at the POS, with no card required. Finger vein pattern is an advanced biometric factor, which, unlike other physical characteristics, cannot be scanned without the knowledge of the individual and cannot be left for duplication as it is non-latent.”
The trial is going on for three weeks in the Worldpay London headquarters where employees have had their vein templates linked to their Visa credit or debit cards. They are able to pay for items in the building’s staff restaurant using only their fingers.
“Our ultimate goal is to make payments even safer, even simpler and more reliable,” adds Nicholas Dryden, CEO of Sthaler. “The benefit of working with Visa Europe Collab and Worldpay is that we have access to some of the best commercial minds in payments. This will help us to better understand how we can make finger vein technology even more convenient and secure for both merchants and consumers.”
