Amazon to allow shoppers to pay with a WAVE by linking credit card details to your hand prints
AMAZON is creating checkout terminals to allow shoppers to link their credit cards to their hands, it was reported. The tech and retail giant envisages the terminals being in physical stores and they would allow shoppers to simply show their palm, without reaching for their card or phone. Amazon is aiming the terminals to coffee […]
AMAZON is creating checkout terminals to allow shoppers to link their credit cards to their hands, it was reported.
The tech and retail giant envisages the terminals being in physical stores and they would allow shoppers to simply show their palm, without reaching for their card or phone.
Amazon is aiming the terminals to coffee shops, fast-food restaurants and other retailers that do lots of repeat business with their customers, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The company has been at the forefront of experimenting with new payment methods and already allows customers at Amazon Go stores to walk out without stopping to pay.
The plans are in their early stages but Amazon has begun working with credit card company Visa to test transactions on the terminals and is in discussions with Mastercard.
The company is reportedly also in talks with several banks in the US which have expressed an interest in enabling customers’ cards to be linked to the terminals.
According to Amazon insiders, the company envisions customers would first use the terminals to link their debit or credit card information to their hands.
PALM PAYMENT
One example cited is that customers might insert cards into a terminal and then let the terminal scan their hands.
After that they would only need to place a hand over the terminal to pay at a retailer participating in the scheme.
At the end of last year, Amazon filed a patent that allows people to be identified by characteristics associated with the palms of their hands, including wrinkles and veins, Recode reported at the time.
In September it emerged Amazon was testing technology that would allow Whole Foods customers to scan their hand to pay at checkout rather than swiping a card.
Workers at the giant’s New York offices are even testing out the biometric tech to buy snacks and drinks from company vending machines.
The New York Post reported the sensors are different from phone fingerprint scanners as they don’t require users to physically touch their hands to the scanning surface.
Instead, they use vision and depth geometry to process and identify the shape and size of each hand they scan before charging a credit card already on file.
The system – codenamed Orville – will apparently allow customers with Amazon Prime accounts to scan their hands at stores and link them to their credit or debit card.
It’s accurate to within one ten-thousandth of one per cent, but Amazon’s tech experts are working to improve it to a millionth of one per cent ahead of its launch, the source said.
While a regular card transaction typically takes between three and four seconds, Amazon’s new tech can process the charge in less than 300 milliseconds, one insider said.
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“Retailers have always been interested in faster checkout,” Majd Maksad, founder and CEO of Status Money, a personal finance site, told The Post.
“You only have to walk into Whole Foods to see the massive lines of people waiting to check out. It’s a massive friction point.”
Amazon have been approached for comment.