Australian consumers will be able to use selfies to verify them before doing a banking transaction
SMARTPHONE selfies will soon be used by consumers to verify a mobile payment.
The rollout of new facial recognition technology in Australia will be used to authenticate a customer and allow a transaction to be processed.
Mastercard’s head of market development and payments innovation Garry Duursma said the new technology is a sophisticated and secure way to authenticate a person — and one that’s more secure than other payment verifications available.
“Ultimately the best way to authenticate a person is not what we can remember or what you have, but who you are,’’ he said.
“You can combine it with what you have and what you can remember in order to increase the security.”
It launched globally last year and is already being used in 14 markets.
Once in use Mastercard requires users to download the relevant app and take a selfie, which is then converted into a facial biometric measurement.
These details can be held at registration with a company too — most likely a bank — to allow users to use the payment technology.
To remove likeliness of fraud, the app requires users to blink in the shot to confirm it’s them and prevent any chance of a photo being held up to verify a user.
It can be used in conjunction with fingerprint recognition and may at some stage replace Personal Identification Numbers.
Global research firm RFi’s research director Alex Boorman welcomed the technology but said for it to be successful it needs to be “secure, convenient, reliable and fast.”
“It’s a behaviour many consumers are aware of in terms of take a selfie, it’s not as if it’s asking consumers to do something radically different,’’ he said.
“Provided it’s reliable I expect it’s something consumers will respond quite favourably to.”
Mr Duursma said Mastercard remains in discussion with both major and minor banks to implement the technology.
The way consumers could use it is when logging on to a banking app or confirming a payment when they are travelling overseas and using their card abroad.
More than 70 points on the face are used by their facial recognition technology to verify a person and it’s due to rollout in Australia later this year.
Originally published as Selfie payments on the way