Mobile Biometric Retail Payments Come to Romania

Romania is getting its first biometric payment system thanks to a new partnership between Wirecard and Oney Bank. The two organizations will collaborate on Well.com, a mobile app that will allow customers to use their fingerprints or a QR code to authorize payments in Auchan Retail stores throughout the country.

“Payment methods are continuously improving and we would like Romanian customers to experience the latest technologies,” said Jean-Michel Goncalves, the Director General of Oney Bank Romania, which is the financial division of Auchan Retail. “We are looking forward to developing new functionalities that will further improve the shopping experience in Romania and beyond.”

Well.com is Romania’s first biometric payment system, and arrives as other systems like Apple Pay continue to make inroads in the neighboring Ukraine and the rest of Europe, though neither is currently available in Romania. At the moment, the Romanian platform only supports fingerprint biometrics. Apple Pay, on the other hand, is accessible through both Touch ID and Face ID, while Samsung Pay is accessible with an iris scan. 

There are already plans to expand the reach of Well.com to other vendors and other countries, including Poland, Hungary, and the Ukraine. The platform is available on iOS and Android and is compatible with a Romanian debit and credit cards from Mastercard or Visa.

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)