MasterCard has finished a pilot test of its new fingerprint-scanning credit card and is poised to move onto the next phase of it’s phase-in, according to a new Money Market article. The initial pilot project was implemented in Norway – the home of Zwipe, MasterCard’s tech partner in the endeavour – and has been deemed a success.So next year the card is going to make its debut in Britain, a country that seems to have recently come around to the benefits of biometric technology, having fully embraced biometric airport screening after a disastrous initial go of it a decade ago. The fingerprint scanners in MasterCard’s new credit cards are, of course, for authentication purposes, and will replace the PIN system currently in use in Britain. It will offer users a streamlined and more secure experience at the point of sale.
All of the major financial companies are jumping on the biometrics bandwagon, and it looks like MasterCard is leading the way. There’s an accurately-perceived need for greater security as commerce shifts into the digital world, and rising customer expectations as the mass market grows accustomed to Apple’s new m-commerce system, which also employs biometric security measures. While there are those who predict that such mobile wallet platforms will actually displace credit cards in the future, there really is only one path forward if the major credit cards are going to be able to compete, and MasterCard is on it.
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