MasterCard to trial online biometric payments

Global payments giant MasterCard wants customers to use “selfies” taken by smartphones or PCs to authenticate online payments.MasterCard is trialling a multi-modal system called “ID check” in a limited experiment involving 500 customers.Staff told CNNMoney that the card provider has partnered with every smartphone maker, including Apple, BlackBerry, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung on the project.”The new generation, which is into selfies ߪ I think they'll find it cool. They'll embrace it,” Ajay Bhalla, president of enterprise security solutions at MasterCard, told CNN.Users simply need to download the MasterCard phone app to use the feature. MasterCard said a pop-up will ask for your authorization using fingerprint or facial recognition.While all fingerprint scans will stay on the device, the facial recognition scan will be linked to the cloud. Bhalla noted that the templates would transmit securely and remain safe on the company's computer servers.Steve Cook, Director of Business Development at Facebanx, told Planet Biometrics: “It is good to see that MasterCard are experimenting with both face and voice recognition because in addition to the fingerprint Touch ID all financial service operators will need to deploy a multimodal approach with biometric authentication as it will very much depend on what consumers will prefer. Having more than one option will lead to faster adoption and greater security that customers will be comfortable with.”Innovation Director at Consult Hyperion, Dave Birch said: “I'm happy using TouchID, and I like the architectural framework of strong authentication against a revocable token held in tamper-resistant memory, but I can see why some people might prefer other options. And I note that face recognition log in has worked well for USAA bank, one of the early adopters”.In May, Mastercard noted plans to launch a biometric payments solution later this year, according to senior staff. Last November, MasterCard outlined plans for a new authentication standard designed to end the use of passwords in online payments, saying that the protocol could be released as early as next year.The firm says the new standard, which is being developed in cooperation with Visa, will move security infrastructure beyond the PC era, “supporting emerging technologies and changing consumer needs”.As reported by Planet Biometrics last October, MasterCard is also working with Norwegian firm Zwipe on a credit card featuring a fingerprint scanner, and with Bionym and the Royal Bank of Canada on trials of the former's Nymi wristband, which uses cardiac rhythms to authenticate users.

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