Fingerprint Payment System Gets Financing

prostoalex writes to tell us Yahoo! News is reporting that Pay By Touch, an electronic payments startup that connects your fingerprint to your wallet, has received an additional $130 million in financing to move forward with their biometric payment system.

For extra security...

[Errandboy of Doom]

...change your fingerprint every 6 weeks:
How To Fake Fingerprints [www.ccc.de]

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Re:Am I missing something?

[JimBobJoe]

The article does a lousy job at explaining that (I read that the 12-14 cents per transaction go to Pay by Touch.)

The Merchant FAQ http://www.paybytouch.com/merchants/faqs.html> on the site says...

What is the cost to me?
As a merchant, you make a small investment in the Pay By Touch hardware and processing. This investment is quickly offset, however, by savings you'll realize due to less fraud, shorter tender times, payment type shifts, and the repeat business you can expect from offering your customers a better shopping experience.

Can I really expect higher profits?
Yes. In addition to the savings mentioned above, your bottom line will also be improved through the lower transaction costs resulting from your being able to influence your shoppers' payment choices.

"Influencing your shoppers' payment choices" is alredy done at many stores--when I use my debit card (like at Target) a keypad will appear for my PIN--so that the transaction is run as a debit and not on the MC/Visa system (to run as a credit requires me to select "cancel" as I recall.)

I believe the big savings are had by encouraging the customer to register their checkbook. Instead of running the transaction as a debit (ACH) or credit charge, Pay by Touch will try it first as an "echeck"--esentially a paper check but without the actual paper (at least, that's how I'm understanding things.)

If the customer chooses ACH debit or credit card, then the savings aren't there (or Pay by Touch swallows the extra costs.)

Re:Trusted Metrics

[tboult0]

Actually the are number of revocable or cancable biometrics-based technologoies being developed. Securics.com has one and IBM has had many recent press releases on their work. These at least protect against database hacks/insiders so that when (not if) a database is compromised. Also recent work at MSU has show real progress on a fuzzy vault that hides digital keys in a fingerprint. Securics even has a version that mixes a pin/passcode with the cryptograpically transformed print, but neither is stored separately. This means it cannot be used to search for you.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt....

[deburg]

Malaysia car thieves steal finger http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4396831.st m [bbc.co.uk]

...

The car, a Mercedes S-class, was protected by a fingerprint recognition system.

...

But having stripped the car, the thieves became frustrated when they wanted to restart it. They found they again could not bypass the immobiliser, which needs the owner's fingerprint to disarm it.

They stripped Mr Kumaran naked and left him by the side of the road - but not before cutting off the end of his index finger with a machete.