Fujitsu, AEON to Trial Naked Payments System at Convenience Stores This September

Fujitsu and Japanese credit card company AEON are poised to deliver Japan’s first real-world naked payments system.

They’ll start in select Ministop convenience stores, where customers who enroll in the system will be able to use Fujitsu’s palm vein biometrics scanners to make purchases. Their palm vein biometrics will be directly linked to their payment accounts, allowing them to buy things without the need for a physical payment card or even a mobile wallet.

The system won’t quite reach the full potential of the naked payments concept, as customers will need to enter their date of birth at the POS terminal before scanning their biometrics. For some customers, that might make the payment process even more onerous than using a tap-to-pay contactless credit card. But it’s easy to imagine later stages of this project dropping the birthdate requirement to allow for simple biometric payments.

AEON and Fujitsu say they will start conducting field trials of the naked payments system with AEON Group employees this September, and that they will proceed with a wider rollout across AEON Group stores based on the results of those initial trials.

News of the effort comes after AEON started trialling cardless ATM access based on finger scans last December, pointing to the company’s ongoing interest in technology directly linking customers’ biometrics to their financial accounts.

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July 13, 2018 – by Alex Perala