Japanese Bank to Let Customers Use Palm Vein Biometrics Instead of Cards

Japan’s Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank is getting ready to offer palm vein authentication to all of its customers across Osaka, Tokai, and Tokyo, reports The Asahi Shimbun.

The bank first introduced the scanners at select ATMs back in 2012, largely in response to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Many customers lost their usual identification documents in the natural disasters, and so the bank sought to establish an even more reliable link between customers and their accounts via biometrics.

Now, it’s bringing the technology to all of its roughly 160 branches, and in so doing will give customers the options of foregoing bank cards entirely. They’ll also be able to open accounts via biometric identification alone.

The move trends with growing enthusiasm over biometrics in Japan’s financial services sector, with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group currently exploring a system that would use facial recognition in lieu of payments cards, and another startup seeking to link fingerprints to account information, with considerable government backing. Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank’s biometric expansion announcement may sound cutting-edge now, but when the technology actually starts to roll out next spring, it could be emerging onto a far more advanced biometric FinTech landscape.

Source: The Asahi Shimbun

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September 14, 2016 – by Alex Perala