ADN’co Payments Insight – August 2015

Serious leads for biometric authentication

• THE NETHERLANDS – ING Bank’s Dutch subsidiary goes for Nuance Communications services to craft their mobile, voice-based authentication app for cardholders’ identification in payment contexts.
• TAIWAN – CTBC Bank tests an ATM  embedding two authentication devices: face and finger vein recognition. One more contract for Hitachi’s veinID, as this technology has already been adopted by other institutions worldwide.
• THE NETHERLANDS / UNITED STATES – MasterCard tests a face recognition feature to authenticate its cardholders’ online transactions.

Biometrics keeps growing more popular and is now considered by both banks and card schemes in payments contexts.

As this data remains particularly sensitive, specific measures and per market approaches apply. Yet, these constraints do not seem to dissuade involved players and more technologies from being developed.

By way of reminder, in France, La Banque Postale would be about to propose Talk to Pay, its voice-based authentication service.

A first test for CurrentC

• UNITED STATES – MCX tests CurrentC in Columbus, Ohio. After having been delayed several times, this service might eventually be rolled out in 2016.

Bitcoin to improve banking inclusion rates

• PHILIPPINES – The start-up Coins.ph proposes a P2P transfer service binding Bitcoin, mobile media and its network of users (so-called “tellers”). This solution mainly targets underbanked customers and comes in addition to typical banking offers. It also stresses another possible use case for virtual currencies.

Another growth relay for Samsung Pay

• INTERNATIONAL – Samsung launches Samsung Pay on TV: new context for Samsung Pay, the European launch of which is now upcoming. This service already started being rolled out in South Korea and registered 80,000 cards in less than a week.