As part of a national trial, NatWest is due to begin piloting biometric fingerprint technology with 200 customers in the coming weeks.
Customers will use their fingerprint to verify transactions over £30, increasing security and making it easier for customers when paying for goods or services at the tills, as no PIN is required.
David Crawford, head of effortless payments, said: “We are using the very latest technology across our business to make banking easier for our customers and biometric fingerprint cards are one of the many technologies we are exploring further.”
NatWest is working closely with digital security company Gemalto, along with Visa and Mastercard, to bring the service to customers in the UK.
Howard Berg, UK managing director of Gemalto, said: “Using a fingerprint rather than a PIN code to authorise transactions has many advantages, primarily enhanced security and greater convenience.”
A survey of 821 UK cardholders for Gemalto in October revealed that more than half would be ready to use biometric fingerprint scan cards if they were available from their bank, with 83 per cent saying it would become their preferred payment card.
NatWest is not the first to try fingerprint recognition on cards, with Société Générale trialling a bank card with a fingerprint sensor in October last year, following testing by Japanese payments firm JCB in April 2018.
At the start of 2018, Mastercard committed to biometric security measures being implemented by this April, so appears to be staying on track, while around the same time, Visa began trialling a biometric-enabled contactless payment card.
Sanctions evasion in an era of conflict: Optimising KYC and monitoring to tackle crime
The ongoing war in Ukraine and resulting sanctions on Russia, and the continuing geopolitical tensions have resulted in an unprecedented increase in parties added to sanctions lists.
Achieving operational resilience in the financial sector: Navigating DORA with confidence
Operational resilience has become crucial for financial institutions navigating today's digital landscape riddled with cyber risks and challenges. The EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) provides a harmonised framework to address these complexities, but there are key factors that financial institutions must ensure they consider.
Legacy isn’t the enemy: what FSIs can do to keep their systems up and running
In this webinar we will examine some of the steps FSIs have already taken to rigorously monitor and test systems – both manually and with AI-powered automation – while satisfying the concerns of regulators and customers.
Optimising digital banking: Unifying communications for seamless CX
In the digital age, financial institutions risk falling behind their rivals if they fail to unite fragmented communications ecosystems to deliver seamless, personalised customer experiences.
This FStech webinar sponsored by Precisely explores vital strategies to optimise cross-channel messaging through omnichannel orchestration and real-time customer data access.
This FStech webinar sponsored by Precisely explores vital strategies to optimise cross-channel messaging through omnichannel orchestration and real-time customer data access.
© 2019 Perspective Publishing Privacy & Cookies
Recent Stories