MasterCard is preparing to launch new mobile payment services. They're called pay-by-selfie and pay-by-fingerprint, and they'll be rolling out this year in Canada, the US, and the UK.
The company hopes to simplify the online shopping experience for MasterCard holders at a time when retailers have started to make it much more complicated with extra security measures at the checkout.
Retailers in the US and UK implement security checks, such as 3D Secure and Verified by Visa, during the online ordering process. But doing so makes the shopping experience more difficult, which can translate into lost sales.
In the UK, 18 percent of online shoppers abandoned their full carts due to “excessive payment security checks” in 2012. And in the US, companies lost $118 billion in sales in 2015 due to “false positives,” transactions that were incorrectly blocked by financial institutions because they couldn’t detect the errors.
Selfie and fingerprint payments bring a simpler alternative to these security checks at the checkout.
The new feature is called biometric authentication, through a customer's photo or fingerprints, and could replace the cumbersome checks used today.
MasterCard's new platform, which will come with the Identity Check app, will give its holders the ability to pay with a selfie, and as an alternative with their fingerprint.
MasterCard holders through financial institutions will be able to install the application on their mobile devices, but it will only work for their online purchases, and not in stores.
