Banco Nacional of Costa Rica is to authenticate clients logging in to mobile banking with face recognition technology from Spanish biometrics company FacePhi.
The Costa Rican bank will roll out the technology to mobile customers in the second quarter. A second phase of the programme will see the face recognition tech expanded to the bank's online services.
The contract marks the seventh financial institution to sign up for PacePhi's technology.
The use of biometrics to eliminate the need for passsword entry is gaining ground in the financial services sector. MasterCard is currently running two pilots in the US and the Netherlands, to test the use of facial recognition technology for payment verification.
With the likes of Apple Pay raising awareness and consumer comfort with the tech, MasterCard says that its research shows that three quarters of people have now heard of biometric payments.
While fingerprint scanning is the most common form of biometric authentication, facial recognition is gaining some traction, with Wells Fargo trialling it for mobile corporate access and firms in Taiwan and China exploring its use at ATMs.