Supermarket launches fingerprint payments

A leading UK supermarket chain has launched a trial scheme enabling customers to pay for their purchases by touching a finger on a scanner.

Co-op has introduced the so-called Pay By Touch payment method in three of its stores in Oxford and is hopeful that the new scheme will help to speed up waiting times at the checkout as well as reduce card fraud.

Customers will be invited to register their fingerprint against their credit and debit card numbers on a central system. When they scan their fingerprint at the checkout, it will be checked against the database and if the print matches, the payment will be processed without the customer producing their card.

Tom Fischer, Co-op’s European vice-president, is confident that the trials of the new scheme will prove a success.

‘It is really very simple. The idea is that rather than using a card to make a payment or to get loyalty points, consumers can register that information in the Pay By Touch system, and then when they want to come and make a purchase they simply use their fingerprint to do that,’ he told BBC Radio Five Live.

‘People register their bank details in the same way they would if they were setting up a direct debit for example, and we just clear the transactions through that same network, so it would appear on their bank statement.’

He added that the fingerprint payment system is already widely used in the US, where it has been well-received by shoppers.

‘We have over 2,000 stores now in the US that are accepting the system, and we have every confidence it will be well received over here as well,’ Mr Fisher said.

‘Our experience says consumers like it because they find it very convenient, fast, secure, and it’s free.’

Pay By Touch currently has over 2.3 million registered users in the US, but the Co-op trials are the first time it has been implemented in Europe.

The new system is initially being introduced at the Midcounties Co-op branch in the city’s Headington district and will be rolled out at the supermarket’s branches in Carterton and Summertown next week.

It represents the second new card payment system to be introduced in the UK in recent years, following the successful implementation of chip and pin.

Last month, all UK retailers were required to switch from signature to chip and pin payments, with figures released yesterday by card payment association Apacs showing that plastic card fraud fell by 13 per cent last year, largely as a result of chip and pin.

© 2006 Adfero Ltd.