Making Shopping Easier
As I have written before, as the Holiday Season is fast encroaching upon us, we want ways in which we don’t have to stand in line to pay for the gifts we want to send out. Or for that matter, we don’t even want to stand in line period to do any shopping. The best example of this is me. Even during the non Holiday Season, I get pretty annoyed with having to wait in line, and pay for my items. This is especially true at the grocery store. Man, do I hate waiting in line at the Jewel Osco I shop at. Well, there is an alternative to this, which is online shopping. I mean heck, who can ask for more . . . shop from the convenience at your own, cozy home, with just a few clicks of the mouse, and voila, in just a week, you have all the products you ordered, delivered nicely by FedEx or UPS.
I guess in this regard, I should probably just do my grocery shopping from Peapod to save the aggravation at the grocery store. But, when I am talking about online shopping, I generally refer to sitting at the comforts of your sofa, with a laptop. But with the explosion of the Smartphone, we can now shop online when we are on go, literally anywhere in the world. And two Biometric Vendors are actually now making this reality of shopping life into an easier existence for us all.
So, here we go: “Oberthur Technologies, a provider of secure technologies, and AuthenTec, a provider of security and identity management solutions, have joined forces to create SIM / Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) based designs that make NFC mobile payment via smartphones faster and more secure. The companies will combine their expertise in SIM/UICC security and fingerprint identity to jointly create easy-to-integrate solutions that enhance the speed and security of mobile payment transactions . . . The demonstration at CARTES will illustrate how quickly yet securely users can make a mobile payment by simply swiping a finger over AuthenTec’s smart sensor on a fingerprint-enabled phone such as Motorola’s ATRIX. Smartphone users can easily access a credit or debit card of their choice by associating different payment methods with different fingers. This allows them to choose a payment method, authenticate, and activate the desired payment card with a single swipe of a finger, then tap the phone on a terminal to complete the NFC transaction. The Oberthur Technologies-AuthenTec solution helps enable single-gesture payments, making NFC applications more convenient and secure.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/9367/).
My Take
To be honest, there is nothing really new with paying for goods and services with Biometrics. It has been done before, and currently being done at retail stores. But, the degree to the extent which it is being used I am not totally sure. I know for sure though, it is Fingerprint Recognition which is the predominant technology in these applications. Probably the best example of this is the local Jewel Osco grocery store I shop at, located here in Lombard. Some years ago, they introduced Fingerprint Recognition as a means of paying for groceries. These small devices sat at all of the checkout lanes for at least a year, with no obvious usage that I could discern from. I would on occasion ask the checkout clerk if anybody was using their fingerprint to pay for their groceries, and the answer would always be a resounding “Nope, not at all”.
Then one day, to my surprise, all of the Fingerprint Recognition devices just mysteriously dissappeared. Given my nature, I wanted to know the real reason why they were taken out. I spent a few minutes asking questions to the manager on duty, and he basically said they were taken out because of the lack of usage by customers. It became more of a cost than a benefit to have Biometrics at the store outlets, he told me. But after further probing, it came to dawn on me, the real reason due to the lack of usage was the lack of customer training and awareness on part of the Biometrics Vendor who installed them. True, there was a kiosk in which customers could enroll their fingerprints into the system, but there was nobody there, or even any kind or type of literature to show them what to do.
And, as I recall this memory, and further read the Press Release, I also find it really interesting (as well as sophisticated, advanced, etc., you pick the adjective) is that a customer can choose the credit card payment they want to use with a different finger. So for example, you can use your index finger to pay with your Discover card, and use your middle finger to pay with your VISA card, and your pinky finger to pay with your American Express card, and so on. Heck, if you 10 different credit cards, you could conceivably use all ten of your fingers.
I have never seen this before, so I think it is ingenious, really. But in order for this to be successful, and not fall on the way side like the example I just wrote about, the Smartphone Vendors and even the Biometrics Vendors are going to have teach the customer how to use this technology. Earth shattering, really . . . just a few minutes of customer attention and focus, can translate into huge dollar volume of shopping and revenues in the end, making this truly a wonderful Holiday Season for retailers.
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