Mastercard and Zwipe vow to kill passwords with biometrics
17th October 2014
Mastercard and Norwegian startup Zwipe announced their desire to “kill passwords” by integrating biometrics directly into your bank card.
The two companies have today announced the world’s first fingerprint authenticated card, and they did so from the Level39 stage.
As @MastercardUKbiz reported live on twitter, Mastercard’s President of Enterprise Security Solutions, Ajay Bhalla said,
“We believe in safety and security when making payments. Passwords need to be killed. The future is biometrics. We believe that fingerprint technology is a scaleable solution, [as] consumers will already have a device with which to authenticate themselves”
Mr. Bhalla observed that, by putting biometrics directly into the card, Mastercard do not need to disrupt their users’ existing habits. Cardholders can continue to transact with their card whilst experiencing a stronger security experience due to the use of biometrics.
Zwipe, who have become members of Level39 through our relationship with Innovation Norway, have partnered with the financial services giants Mastercard to deliver this groundbreaking payments technology.
Kim Humborstad of Zwipe explained that this announcement follows a successful test in Norway, in which 200 card-holders trialled the biometric card.
Mr. Humborstad went on to explain that their system does not require any external databases, because all of the biometric information is stored in the card itself. This makes the security process even safer, as there is no chance that your biometric details could be shared if the secured of an ‘external database’ is compromised.
Keep an eye on both the Mastercard and Zwipe twitter feeds for live updates, and thanks to Nils-erik Bjorholt for the photography.