Russian bank Sberbank has established a partnership with Azbuka Vkusa supermarket to enable fingerprint payments in stores.
This new service is currently available in 20 supermarkets, with planed launches in more locations on the horizon. In any participating supermarkets, customers can pay for their shopping via biometric POS terminals, previously consumers could only use this function in a store they had registered their fingerprint.
To signup for the service, at checkout the consumer ties two fingerprints to a Visa or MasterCard bank card and confirm registration via a password. Following this, the consumer can complete payments at supermarkets without their card, and only using their fingerprint and a confirmation password.
Biometric data is not held by the supermarket, instead it is converted into numerical codes which are attributed to a specific card and stored on an external database.
Sberbank deputy chairman of the executive board Svetlana Kirsanova said, “Sberbank continues to carry out its strategy to deploy biometric identification tools in banking processes. Using biometrics in merchant acquiring not only lets people make payments without physical carriers, such as cards, smartphones and other gadgets, but also paves the way for new innovative customer service scenarios at retail chains.”
Plans are to install the biometric POS terminals at all Azbuka Vkusa supermarkets and AV Daily minimarkets located within Moscow’s Third Ring Road.
Last year, The World Economic Forum partnered with the Sberbank to combat cybercrime in financial services.
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
