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Sberbank partners supermarket for fingerprint payments

Russia's Sberbank has teamed up with supermarket chain Azbuka Vkusa to let shoppers pay for groceries with their fingerprints.

  16 2 comments

Sberbank partners supermarket for fingerprint payments

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

Once Sberbank customers have registered their biometric data they can leave their wallets and phones at home and pay with their fingers at 20 Azbuka Vkusa stores in Moscow.

Separately, Sberbank says that it has met government requirements to let customers register their biometric data at 20% of its branches.

Russia is asking banks to collect voice and face biometric data for a new Unified Biometric System (UBS) and personal data for a Unified Identification and Authentication System (UIAS).

The data, which is stored in the central bank-run UBS, means that Russians can carry out banking activities, such as account opening, fund transfers and loan applications, through their phones and computers.

Banks were told to ensure that customers could register for the service at 20% of their branches by the beginning of this year, rising to 60% by June.

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Comments: (2)

A Finextra member 

When 2019 feels like 2002 - thats when PayByTouch tried this - it failed miserably - hopefully this one will have more success.

It would have been better to have supported openloop biometrics rather than closed trial with limited large merchants.

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

More recently, the Indian Aadhaar Enabled Payment System - very similar to PayByTouch - seemed very promising. Until the Supreme Court outlawed the use of Aadhaar biometrics for anything other than its original charter around benefit payments. IMO, these account-linked payment methods offer payers no compelling reason to switch from credit cards, which offer many benefits like rewards, and are likely to succeed only in markets where credit card penetration is quite low e.g. India. 

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