Bahrain-based FinTech solutions provider Eazy Financial Services has teamed up with NCR Corporation to work on a pioneering naked payments solution for the region.
The idea is to establish a ‘Biometric Payment Network’ in which users’ fingerprints are linked to bank accounts. Users would sign up by enrolling their fingerprints with participating banks, and would then be able to make payments with a fingerprint scan – and no need for PINs, passwords, cards, or payment devices of any kind. Payments would be processed through NCR’s Authentic transaction processing platform.
In a statement announcing the collaboration, Eazy Financial Services CEO Khaled Al Ahli explained that “NCR has an established name in the region” and thus could help the network to gain traction in Bahrain and the Middle East more broadly. “We are looking to NCR to help us build a robust infrastructure through its hardware and software expertise,” he added.
Of course, the tricky part will be getting enough banks on board, and ensuring that enough merchants are prepared to accept fingerprint payments, for the Biometric Payment Network to catch on among users. But with the right kinds of infrastructural support, such a system could be feasible, as can be seen in India’s experimentation with ‘Aadhaar Pay’, a similar platform that works with that country’s national biometric ID program.
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May 30, 2017 – by Alex Perala
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