FOSTER CITY, Calif.–Visa announced it will start a small-scale trial of payment cards with built-in fingerprint scanners, with a credit union being one of the two financial institutions participating in the trial.
Visa earlier announced that effective in April 2018 it will eliminate the need for signatures with EMV chip or contactless payments.
Visa has now joined with American Express, Discover, and MasterCard in phasing out signatures, making them optional for all EMV contact or contactless chip-enabled merchants in North America from this April. Older credit cards without EMV chips will still require signatures for authentication.
Instead, Visa plans to begin piloting fingerprint recognition as an alternative to PIN or signatures, with Bank of Cyprus and Mountain America Credit Union taking part in the trials. The number of consumers to be issued the fingerprint-enabled cards was not revealed. Bank of Cyprus will use Gemalto's biometrics solution, while Mountain America Credit Union will use technology from Fingerprint Cards and Kona-I.
"When a cardholder places their finger on the sensor, a comparison is performed between the fingerprint and the previously enrolled fingerprint template securely stored in the card in order to authenticate the transaction," Visa said in a statement. "Green and red lights are integrated into the card to indicate a successful or unsuccessful match."
Mastercard has since 2014 also been testing fingerprint sensors on cards.