“In a statement announcing Cook’s appointment, FaceTec emphasized his work consulting with banks on compliance with PSD2, the European Union’s major new payments regulation, and particularly its Strong Customer Authentication requirement.”

A big new executive appointment could help FaceTec to promote its ZoOm facial recognition system in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa markets. Steve Cook, a highly experienced biometrics industry veteran, has been named the company’s new VP of Business Development.

Cook comes to the team with experience from major players in the industry. He was the Director of Business Development for Facebanx from 2013 to 2015, and Director of EMEA Sales for Daon from 2016 to this past February. And for many years he has been operating as a biometric and FinTech consultant as the head of Biometrics for eCommerce.

In a statement announcing Cook’s appointment, FaceTec emphasized his work consulting with banks on compliance with PSD2, the European Union’s major new payments regulation, and particularly its Strong Customer Authentication requirement. With the September 14th deadline for compliance fast approaching, and the ZoOm 3D facial recognition system offering a powerful tool to help meet the SCA requirement, Cook is poised to help encourage its adoption among European institutions.

Commenting on his appointment more broadly, Cook asserted that “FaceTec is an exciting, truly forward-thinking company,” and called ZoOm, which enables mobile authentication via a brief video selfie, an “extremely robust” solution. “Once I saw ZoOm had been rated higher than any other biometric authenticator in a well respected 3rd party test I knew FaceTec had the solution so many are looking for,” he said.