Authentication: Digicel Pacific Uses Biometrics to Enable Funds Transfers

• Digicel Pacific, subsidiary of the telecom company Digicel Group, enables its Digicel Mobile Money customers to transfer funds after having been identified through biometric sensors and dedicated VeriFone terminals in New Zealand Stores. Upon registration, the user provides his fingerprints later to be used for identification processes.

• The recipient can take out the received amount with his Digicel Mobile Money m-wallet, already in use in five countries in the Pacific area; funds transfers, bills payments and mobile top-ups services are already available.

Source: Digicel’s press release

• Digicel has recently partnered with the US-based VeriFone to roll out its mobile wallet, mWallet, as well as contactless payment services in Tonga’s main town, Nuku'alofa. Through working with DIgicel, the manufacturer is given access to nearly 200,000 potential customers. The Pacific islands are especially propitious to the development of funds transfer solutions, and 400 million dollars are processes this way towards these destinations every year.

• In compliance with New Zealand Law Know Your Customer (enforced in 2010) ID credentials are to be recorded every time an international transfer is made. The use of fingerprints allows customers to provide this data only once, thus streamlining the payment process.

• Biometric solutions in face-to-face payments contexts have for instance been adopted in initiatives such as PayTouch’s in Spain (see “PayTouch’s Biometric Solution Installed in a Hotel”).