Muxi and Fortress Identity have teamed up to create a new naked payments solution that blends face and voice recognition technology. Dubbed muxiPAY, the platform identifies the customer with a facial recognition scan as they approach the checkout counter, and then asks them to say a passphrase out loud to confirm their purchases with voice recognition.

Like other naked payments schemes, muxiPAY does not require any cash or the presence of a physical card, although users would obviously need to link their account with their biometric information. The system uses the Fortress Identity AI system for authentication, and was unveiled at last month’s Finovate Fall 2019 event in New York.

“For anyone who normally commands Alexa, Siri and other digital assistants in their daily lives, muxiPAY is the logical next step in the marketplace,” said Fortress Identity CEO Alessandro Chiarini. “Once the cashier checks out your items, and the checkout station identifies you, your account asks you to recite a word or phrase, and you’re done.” 

muxiPAY arrives shortly after CLEAR placed automated biometric payment kiosks at Citi Field in New York, although the CLEAR scheme uses fingerprints rather than face and voice recognition, and requires physical contact with the scanner. While facial recognition has been used at KFC locations in China, muxiPAY’s addition of voice recognition gives its platform a second layer of biometric security that should theoretically make it safer than a scheme that only uses one modality.

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)