Sberbank brings fingerprint payments to Russia’s supermarkets
Sberbank and supermarket chain Azbuka Vkusa (AV) have partnered to allow consumers to pay for shopping using their fingerprint at all AV stores in Russia equipped with biometric POS terminals.
Pay for your milk with your fingerprint.
Previously clients could only use fingerprint payment at the supermarket where they registered their biometric details – now, this gives them access to all of them.
Payments can be made by scanning a fingerprint and confirming the transaction with the password, without bank card or a smartphone.
Svetlana Kirsanova, deputy chairman of the executive board of Sberbank and head of the retail business block, says: “Using biometrics in merchant acquiring not only lets people make payments without physical carriers, such as cards, smartphones and other gadgets, but also paves the way for new innovative customer service scenarios at retail chains.”
The firms have also made it easier to sign up for the service and start using it. After the registration process, which takes place at a checkout, clients tie two fingerprints to a Visa or Mastercard bank card and confirm the registration by coming up with a password.
The stores do not keep any of the clients’ biometric data – after the data is scanned, it is transformed into a unique set of numerical codes. Each code is given an identifier, which is held in a database and tied to the bank card which was presented during registration.
In 2019 it is planned to install biometric POS terminals at all AV supermarkets and AV Daily minimarkets located within Moscow’s Third Ring Road. Biometric payment is currently available at 20 AV supermarkets.
