Just a few short years ago, unlocking your smartphone with your fingerprint seemed revolutionary – and was aptly marketed as such by Apple. However, while we’ve quickly become used to biometric security, we haven’t yet truly seen fingerprint sensors become a staple of everyday life elsewhere.
In an interesting move Samsung and Mastercard have today announced a collaborative project to construct a payment card with a built-in fingerprint reader.
If the news sounds familiar, it’s actually because Mastercard first trialed fingerprint-sensing cards right here in South Africa in 2017. Such cards are still offered by Mastercard, but are a rare sight on our shores.
In a move that might bolster the adoption of such payment cards, Samsung has confirmed that the co-produced cards in question would actually inherit a new chipset from the South Korean firm’s LSI Business rather than using Mastercard’s own technology.
A major benefit of a card with a fingerprint scanner is that the card itself is nigh-on useless if stolen without a thumb in tow.
While the card can and will be read by Mastercard’s own authentication technology and will work with Mastercard chip or Point-of-Sale terminal (POS), the card would handle fingerprint scanning itself – which would reduce the need for multiple contact points.
The product will be backed by Samsung’s Card division, which is Samsung’s largest credit card company. The co-branded Samsung and Mastercard payment card will first be available in South Korea, though it remains to be seen just how far the product will make it overseas.
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