International. MasterCard is geared toward biometrics as a way to decrease transaction fraud. That payments company is going to test a system that allows the customer to choose between facial or fingerprint recognition to confirm a transaction, Ajay Bhalla told CNN Money.
Customers first have to download the app to their mobile device. Then, after a consumer makes a transaction, they are asked to confirm it on their mobile device.
The customer can choose a fingerprint if they have a device with a scanner or facial recognition. Customers can select facial recognition, look at the phone, blink once, and the transaction is complete. Customers have to blink to prove that a photo is not being used to circumvent the system. The demo offered to CNN Money used the system to verify an online transaction, but the article referenced that it could also be used in a physical environment. As U.S. payment companies will conduct EMV transactions, the purpose is to implement additional authentication factors, as fraud will begin to migrate more strongly online.
MasterCard partnered with Apple, BlackBerry, Google, Microsoft and Samsung for the project. The credit card company is still in the process of closing deals with two major banks, so it wasn't ready to let customers know who would get it first.
Increasingly, banks are taking advantage of the additional security mechanisms that are available on mobile devices in order to better authenticate consumers.
