Biometric alternatives to the fore at Money20/20
Bionym, Royal Bank of Canada and MasterCard are testing ECG-authenticated payments
Biometric identity verification mechanisms were prominent among the raft of new product announcements at the Money20/20 event in Las Vegas, which opened this week.
Bionym announced a trial with Royal Bank of Canada of a device, the Nymi Band, that verifies identity based on the uniqueness of a wearer’s heartbeat, to a MasterCard card for payment. The trial will put RBC customers and their existing accounts and other issuing banks at the forefront of innovative technology by testing ECG-authenticated payments in Canada before the end of the year.
“Payments is a great use-case for persistent identity, because making the experience seamless for consumers is just as important as providing the trust and security that only you can authorize a payment with your account. This could be unlike any other next generation payment mechanism,” said Andrew D’Souza, president of Bionym. “We are excited to work to bring the world’s first biometrically authenticated wearable payment solution to market.”
“Consumers need to feel that the payments experience is becoming ever easier and innovative,” says Stephane Wyper, vice president, MasterCard Labs. “Our work with MasterCard’s customers with Bionym shows MasterCard’s continued commitment to engage with startups in innovative trials to test new experiences for consumers and with our customers to gain learnings on ways to continue to improve security”.
“We are excited to work with Bionym to put our patent-pending payment technology in the Nymi band, providing clients with more choice, convenience and flexibility in making everyday purchases,” said Jeremy Bornstein, head of payments innovation at RBC. “We’re continuing to work to provide customers increased choice how they pay. Once their wristband is activated, they can leave their phone at home while they go for a run or run an errand and conveniently and securely buy a coffee or groceries with a tap of the wrist.”
Another new offering comes from Tip.ly, in the form of a peer-to-peer mobile payment application developed using facial recognition and location-based technologies.
Tip.ly allows people to tip service professionals with their mobile phone without the exchange of any personal information, such as phone numbers, email addresses and credit cards.
“Current digital payment technologies focus on facilitating consumer-to-merchant or trusted peer-to-peer transactions. However, the exchange of personal information required by these payment solutions poses a security concern for many individuals when they’re wishing to make a payment to a person they don’t know,” said Stephen Campbell, co-founder and chief executive of Tip.ly.
Tip.ly’s design enables users to tip faster than cash through two different payment options – Quick Tips or Face Tips. The Quick Tips palette allows consumers to find, select and tip existing registered Tip.ly service professionals that are near their current location, have registered at that location or have previously received tips from a Tip.ly user at that location.
Consumers also have the option to pay a service worker who is not already registered with Tip.ly using Face Tips, which offers a revolutionary facial recognition technology. By using Tip.ly’s secure server to take a photo of the person receiving the tip and submitting the desired monetary amount, individuals can tip their service professionals, even if they are not currently registered with Tip.ly. The recipient has 14 days to log in to any camera-equipped device to submit their photo and bank details to safely collect their payment.
“Our aim is to eliminate the anxiety that comes with tipping for services,” said Campbell. “This service industry is a large component of our economy and it is a workforce that is heavily reliant on tips. We aim to revolutionise the tipping experience and provide a safe, secure mechanism for paying workers that need it most.”
Users of the app can register one or more credit or debit cards into Tip.ly as their payment method and tips are paid directly to their bank accounts within 1-2 business days. Tip.ly says it has conducted user acceptance testing and has verified platform scalability on Amazon Web Services.
