Amex ‘Facing’ the Future of M-Payments with Biometrics Plan (April 13, 2015)
Biometrics continue to make inroads into payments, with American Express testing new technology that uses facial recognition to authenticate mobile transactions. The initiative is still in the experimental stage and isn’t yet ready for launch, according to a Wall Street Journal report. For now, the payments network is still considering whether to go into full development, the report said. Some “incremental challenges” still need to be ironed out, including ensuring users align the camera properly and enabling fast and accurate matching of images with those stored on file.
As fraud migrates to mobile platforms, biometrics have emerged as among the most promising solutions for increasing security. News of American Express’ biometric ambitions comes less than a month after Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba unveiled its “Smile to Pay” technology, which enables mobile shoppers to scan their faces using the phones’ cameras to authenticate payments on the company’s mobile shopping site. Meanwhile, Apple Pay’s fingerprint authentication is credited by many observers with helping drive the platform’s rapid uptake by consumers. And in late 2014, U.S. Bank tested a voice-based authentication service for mobile payments.
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