Eftpos New Zealand Launches Terminals Built for Face and Palm Payments

Eftpos New Zealand has launched a new family of Victa payment terminals designed to support face and palm recognition, digital identity checks and other services at the point of sale. The company is making the hardware available now, while describing the biometric functions as forthcoming capabilities that depend on third-party integrations.

New Zealand merchants are receiving terminals prepared for biometric applications rather than a national face-payment service that is already live. Victa says the devices can eventually let an enrolled customer pay by standing in front of a terminal or presenting a palm, subject to the payment and identity systems connected to the hardware.

The roadmap also includes age confirmation and digital identity. Victa describes a customer using a phone-based credential to prove an age threshold at checkout without disclosing more personal information than the transaction requires. The planned function is intended to support sales of age-restricted goods while reducing reliance on visual inspection of a physical document.

Eftpos New Zealand says its existing payments network reaches more than 90,000 business locations across the country. It is the preferred terminal supplier for all five merchant-acquiring banks in New Zealand. Banks, wallet providers and merchants could activate compatible biometric payment services across that network.

Comparable identity-capable checkout projects are also under way in other markets. Clover and Wink are integrating face, palm and voice authentication into point-of-sale devices, while the Central Bank of the UAE has tested face and palm payments in a controlled government setting.

Biometric checkout systems also require enrollment, consent, payment-token binding, presentation-attack detection, deletion controls and fallback methods. Those functions determine how customers can use face or palm recognition in place of a card or mobile wallet.

Face and palm payments are marked as coming soon and will be delivered through third-party integrations. The terminals can be deployed before those services are activated, allowing merchants to use conventional payment functions on the same hardware.

The launch places biometric authentication and privacy-preserving identity proofs alongside card and mobile-wallet payments on Eftpos New Zealand’s terminal roadmap. The same hardware is intended to support conventional checkout services and identity-based functions as integrations become available.

Sources: Victa

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team