In a-six month trial,
more than 900 customers of supermarket chain Auchan and DIY store Leroy Merlin
had the chance to pay for their shopping using their fingerprints.
The pilot took place
between October 2012 and March 2013 in Villeneuve-d'Ascq and Angoulême near
Lille in northern France.
The participants carried
a payment card that stored their fingerprint data and a case that was used to
communicate with the payment terminal.
When they went to pay,
shoppers just placed a finger on the reader. The reader read either their
fingerprints or finger veins.
Following the trial 94pc
of participants said they were willing to use the payment option for all their
in-store purchases.Almost 5,000
transactions took place during the trial, which product developers Natural
Security, part of Banque Accord, said was a high adoption rate
The scheme involved banks
Banque Accord, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, as well as
retailers.
A recent survey of 2,159
shoppers by payments processing firm WorldPay also found a strong interest in
biometric payment methods.
Almost half (49pc) of
those surveyed said they would like to have biometric payments, such as
fingerprint, palm or iris scanners. Just 30pc said they would like to use
contactless smartphone payments and 23pc wanted to use text message payments.
Ron Kalifa, deputy
chairman of WorldPay, said: "It's interesting to see the public
considering options such as biometric payments, a science that they may have
seen in sci-fi films or on TV, which suggests familiarity and visibility of new
payment technologies is crucial in moving usage from tech savvy enthusiasts to
the wider public."
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