MasterCard unveiled a new credit card with a built-in fingerprint scanner. The card allows customers to authorize payments with just a touch, rather than using signatures and PIN numbers, and it works with existing chip-and-PIN card machines. The company is already testing the new bio-metric payment cards, combined with the on-board chips, in South Africa and says it hopes to roll out the new cards to the rest of the world by the end of 2017. If you think that this feature would not allow you to share your card with your family, don’t worry — MasterCard has a solution for this issue as well. The company has confirmed that even if the card is configured to expect the fingerprint for authenticating a purchase, but it does still have a PIN as a fallback, According to MasterCard, the new bio-metric payment card will not require store owners and businesses to buy any new hardware, like fingerprint scanners, because the sensor in the card reads your fingerprint.
Since both the data and the scanner exist on the same card, the new payment cards work with existing EMV card terminal infrastructure [ EMV is a technical standard for smart payment cards and for payment terminals ]— the standard chip/swipe readers you can find at many stores these days, though old magnetic stripe-only terminals won’t be compatible. But, Banks Need to Adopt New Technology, Before this new cards can be adopted worldwide, your banks or financial institution will have to get on board with the new tech. How MasterCard Bio-metric Payment Card Works Once your templates are saved, your card is ready to be used at compatible terminals across the world. Merchants don’t have to purchase new equipment to accept your fingerprint-enabled payment card but will have to update their machinery in an effort to use the new tech. Now, while shopping at any store, just place your bio-metric payment card into a retailer’s EMV terminal and then put your finger on the embedded sensor to pay. Your fingerprints will be verified against a template stored on your card to approve your transaction. Can Fingerprints be Forged? This new card is made in an attempt to make face-to-face payments more convenient and more secure, but this type of bio-metric verification is useless when it comes to online shopping, and so, does not provide any security over credit card frauds. “Whether unlocking a smartphone or shopping online, the fingerprint is helping to deliver additional convenience and security,” MasterCard security chief Ajay Bhalla said. “[A fingerprint is] not something that can be taken or replicated and will help our cardholders get on with their lives knowing their payments are protected.” But that isn’t true. Fingerprints can be faked, unfortunately, and we have seen previous research in which high-resolution images were used to make fake fingerprints for malicious purpose. So, criminals could put a fake fingerprint on top of their finger to shop from stolen cards. In addition to bio-metric cards, MasterCard is also planning to bring contact less payments, which should function similar to mobile payments like Apple Pay where users authenticate themselves via fingerprint while holding their smartphones against the terminal.
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AuthorHello everyone, my name is Irfan Ahmed and I’m a blogger. A simple, caring, God fearing, talented, honest, trustworthy and kind hearted are few traits that perfectly defines who I am. Archives
May 2020
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