Identity, Security, Payments, Biometrics, Smart Cards and Authentication News

Bank biometrics take on the panic button

Friday, July 11, 2008

With the fast rising concerns over customer account security in banking, Siemens and AXSionics, a Swiss technology firm, have developed a new fingerprint scanner that links up with your bank account, according to an Economist article.

While fingerprint scanning as a means of access to one’s account is not new, this device carries a few other new features to help discourage thieves. Among the new features is the requirement that the finger used have blood pumping through it, to assuage any worries over a thief cutting off ones finger and using it to access an account.


Another feature is the designation of a panic finger. On the device a user may require any number of fingerprint readings be required prior to account access, however, they may also designate one of their fingers be used to simulate a transaction while secretly alerting the bank to the emergency.

As costs are still high with this new technology, analysts still believe that voice biometrics will find wide-spread use in banking before fingerprint readers do, however, they see this as a good solution for the more well-off bank customers with more to spend and more to protect.

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NagraID demonstrated its latest line of display cards at this year’s ShowStoppers@CES exhibition at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel.

These display cards enable cardholders to use one device for payment, physical access, online account security and transactions for card not present environments. The credit card-sized display cards contain an integrated LCD for displaying single-use passwords, personalized messages and other critical information.

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German bank, Sparkasse will pilot contactless payments for its bank credit card users, reports Venture Village.

Locations in Hannover, Braunschweig and Wolfsburg will be some of the first for the trial, which begins in April. More than 1.3 million customers will receive the new bank cards complete with contactless functionality.

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The European Association for Biometrics (EAB) is focusing on a goal of driving the research and development of biometrics and building the future of the industry around a concern for end-user privacy protection.

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Hitachi partnered with Turkey-based banking company Isbank to bring biometric identification authentication to roughly 3,400 ATMs in Europe.

While the new network of biometric ATMs, which utilize Hitachi’s finger vein scanning technology, is the largest in Europe, it is far from the largest worldwide where Japan has embraced the technology and installed more than 75,000 finger vein-based ATMs.

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Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile operator, has announced the launch of a SIM-based NFC road toll payment application on the Turkcell T11 smart phone.

Developed in collaboration with Bank Asya, the app allows users to migrate their plastic KGS toll payment cards onto their T11 smart phone to pay for fares when crossing bridges and freeway turnpikes.

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The Rising pan-European and International Awareness of Biometrics and Security Ethics (RISE) Project has announced it will be concluding its biometrics conference covering responsible research and innovation in biometrics on December 1 - 2.

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