Biometrics house SmartMetric has introduced a miniature fingerprint scanner that sits inside the chip of a credit or debit card and takes less than a second to authenticate.
The technology works by touching the sensor on the surface of the card that scans and matches the cardholder’s fingerprint to the pre-stored fingerprint inside the card, activating the card for payment.
SmartMetric said the scan, match, authentication and card activation take less than a second and the technology uses industry-standard payment chips, making it applicable for deployment by banks without requiring new systems or hardware.
The company said it is currently in talks with dealers and distributors in the U.S., Europe and South America to issue the fingerprint technology into new cards.
Designed specifically for use with chip cards, the biometric technology adds protection from credit and debit card thieves and is powered by an internal, miniature rechargeable battery that allows cards to not have to draw power from a reader unlike other biometric cards. This is important because other biometric cards can’t be used in such places as restaurants that take the card from the table for processing or most ATMs, SmartMetric said.