South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has briefed Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn on a plan to establish a biometric payments system in the country, reports KBS World Radio.
The system will be based on palm vein recognition, and is aimed at enabling payments conducted solely through biometric authentication and without the need for cards, phones, or any other special hardware. The FSC is aiming to launch the ‘naked payments’ system as early as the first half of this year.
It’s not the only country considering such an idea. The Japanese government has been involved in developing a system that would link tourists’ fingerprints to their payment accounts when they visit for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and government authorities in India recently announced a fingerprint payment initiative connected to the country’s national biometric ID program, Aadhaar.
For its part, South Korea does appear to have a health appetite for biometric authentication, with government authorities having worked with the communications industry to actively foster the development of such technology, and domestic consumer electronics giant Samsung working to pioneer mainstream mobile iris biometrics.
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January 6, 2017 – by Alex Perala
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