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Biometrics at ATMs shows promise in Asia

February 7, 2007

BusinessWeek.com: Japanese banks have turned to devices that read fingers and palms for sizable ATM cash withdrawals. But will U.S. banks follow their lead? Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking has outfitted its ATMs with scanners that take a snapshot of the veins in each customer's finger, and then compares it with a digital image stored in a chip on the customer's ATM card.Biometric ATMs are becoming a major security tool for Japanese banks. In the past two years, dozens of financial houses have added vein scanners to their ATMs, in response to legislation passed in 2006 that makes banks liable for withdrawals by criminals using stolen or counterfeit bank cards. Today, more than 20,000 of Japan's 110,000 ATMs have vein scanners, and sales of the technology reached an estimated U.S. $70 million in 2006, according to the Japan Automatic Identification Systems Association.