If you have a hard time remembering your credit card’s four-digit PIN, there is good news for you. MasterCard has unveiled its first payment card with biometric fingerprint scanner. Instead of requiring its owner to enter a four-digit personal identification number (PIN), it features a small area that can verify the card user’s fingerprints. Much of our devices that we use on a daily basis now use biometric fingerprint scanners for authentication; so it makes sense that credit and debit cards also adopt this technology to make our lives simpler.
MasterCard has introduced the payments card in South Africa, following successful trials with a local bank and retailer. It is currently extending the trials and plans to fully introduce the technology this year, as well as bringing the fingerprint sensor cards to Europe and Asia. MasterCard’s chief of safety and security, Ajay Bhalla, said that the fingerprint technology would help “to deliver additional convenience and security. It is not something that can be taken or replicated.” The card with the biometric sensor is surprisingly not thicker than a regular credit card. The fingerprint sensor is a small, thumbnail-sized rectangle that sits at the top right corner, and is easily accessible when you stick the card into a payment terminal. But the biometric verification can only be used for in-store purchases.
[Via – engadget]
