by MasterCard seems to have caughtup with technology realising that fingerprint security could be a good idea, especially since apple released TouchID and made the world almost comfortable with fingerprint recognition.
So here in the UK we have NFC cards which are great, simply tap the card on the reader and it’s paid for however unscrupulous types can use the card for a few times until it asks for the pin to be entered.
To combat this MasterCard have partnered with Zwipe a specialist in the field of biometric processing. So now a finger will need to rest on the sensor before any payment can be made and no doubt reducing the number of fraudulent transactions.
Backwards compatability is there as it will be it’s also fully compatible with chip terminals. Much like TouchID the fingerprint data is stored on the card and is never transmitted to MasterCard so it’s a safe to assume it just releases a yes or no for the finger registered.
Trials had already taken place with Norway’s Sparebanken DIN running a trial but check out the pic below to see the version one which has a battery inside.
Zwipe has found a better way to power NFC requirements by “harvesting” RF energy from payment terminals, so anytime it’s used it will get a power up. How much lag this introduces hasn’t been revealed just yet.
MasterCard predict these will be available in the UK in some point during 2015 but will it be out in time to fend off anything Apple Pay releated?
Nice as this might be, who’s really called Mr Cool??
Leave a Reply