STRATEGIC PARTNERS
The FI will pilot a new spec from Visa designed to integrate palm, voice, iris and facial biometrics with the EMV chip industry standard.
September 17, 2015
ATMs at South Africa's Absa Bank will be the first to trial a new Visa specification for fingerprint validation at chip-enabled devices.
Just this week Visa Inc. announced the new specification for the use of biometrics with chip card transactions. The specification can enable palm, voice, iris, or facial biometrics, the company said in a press release. The framework was designed to work with the EMV chip industry standard to help ensure open, globally interoperable solutions.
Absa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Africa Group, will use the Visa spec to develop a proof of concept trial beginning this fall. Cardholders will use fingerprint readers at select Absa-owned ATMs in lieu of a PIN to complete transactions.
The Visa solution enables secure acceptance, encryption and validation of fingerprint identification by a biometric reader. The specification supports "match-on-card" authentication in which the biometric is validated by the EMV chip card itself, and never exposed or stored in a central database.
However, the company said, issuers can optionally validate the biometric data within their secure systems for transactions occurring in their own environments — for instance, at their own ATMs.
Visa's design is built on the EMV chip standard, ensuring seamless integration and global interoperability with EMV technology currently in use by 3.3 billion chip cards around the world.
"There is increasing demand for biometrics as a more convenient and secure alternative to signatures or PINs, especially as biometrics technologies have become more reliable and available," said Mark Nelsen, senior vice president of risk products and business intelligence at Visa. "However, to support wide adoption, it is equally important that solutions are scalable and based on open standards. Building on the EMV chip standard provides a common, interoperable foundation, as well as encourages innovation in cutting-edge biometric solutions."
Visa plans to offer the technology to EMVCo, the global technical body that manages EMV specifications. EMVCo would then further develop and administer the standard for the entire payment industry.
