Mastercard and NEC team on in-store biometric payments

Mastercard is working with NEC Corporation to push the use of facial recognition technology for instore payments in Asia Pacific. The firms have inked a memorandum of understanding that will see them combine NEC’s face recognition and liveness verification technology with Mastercard’s payment enablement and user experience. The partnership is the latest stage in Mastercard’s Biometric Checkout Program, which launched with a pilot in Brazil last year. The programme aims to provide merchants, banks and technology firms with a technology framework to help set minimum standards for security, biometric performance, data protection and privacy requirements. Ajay Bhalla, president, cyber and intelligence solutions, Mastercard, says: “As retailing environments continue to evolve and choices in ways to pay rapidly expand, biometric solutions offer a seamless, quick and secure checkout, without needing to unlock a phone or insert a PIN. “This partnership with NEC will enable us to bring exciting new biometric payments to customers in countries across Asia Pacific and lead the world in safe and convenient checkout experiences.”