A recent survey conducted by Wincor Nixdorf shows that a strong majority of French consumers are interested in using fingerprint scanning technology to secure transactions.

Out of 1,008 French consumers surveyed, a healthy 69% said they were in favor of scanning their fingerprint at the point of sale to secure electronic payments rather than punch in a PIN code. 

MasterCard introduced a road map focused on advancing the U.S. electronic payments system. The map, which includes the path for migration from magnetic stripe to EMV technology available on chip cards, will serve as the foundation for the next generation of products and services.

As payments evolve to include new devices and new channels, such as mobile and eCommerce, the road map takes steps to address how consumers shop, providing them greater security and control in their payment choices and the potential to integrate loyalty programs and offers into the purchasing experience. 

VoiceTrust announced it has been awarded a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Development Private Sector Investment (PSI) Program to roll out biometric identity systems in Pakistan.

The systems being brought to Pakistan, called Proof-of-Life, is intended to assist with identification authentication for services such as pension disbursement and other financial services by replacing PINs and passwords with voice biometrics. 

Mobile payment solution provider I Love Velvet announced that it has reached the second level of EMV certification (EMV2) which authorizes PIN and integrated chip payments from debit, credit and smart cards around the world.

I Love Velvet’s customers in the payment sector include Bank of America, Moneris Canada, Heartland Payment Systems, Zetes Nederland and TSYS. The company also has clients in hospitality, telecommunications, health care, fashion as well as travel.

In addition, the I Love Velvet recently finalized point-of-sales operations for Nespresso and Verizon Wireless.  

Precise Biometrics has developed a new line of “smart cases” for brands of tablets and smart phones to be released in 2012 and 2013. The new smart cases have built-in card reader and fingerprint sensor enabling users to both secure their devices as well as replace various password-based security for protected online sites and applications.

The various problems Precise expects their new smart cases to solve include enabling government workers that need to scan smart cards in order to gain access to secured sites to access those sites from their mobile device. 

SHAZAM, a member-owned and -controlled EFT network and processor, has chosen Adaptive Payments’ Pentagon mobile POS payments application. With the Pentagon platform, merchants can accept PIN debit, signature debit and credit transactions from iPhone and Android phones and tablets.

Pentagon uses Adaptive Payments’ 5DSecure five factor-dual channel authentication technology for PIN debit transactional authentication by using the customer’s smart device for PIN capture combined with outside-of-band authentication technology. PIN information is kept separate from the cardholder’s card data and personal information through a second channel. 

Barnes International announced that its updated Visa GPR Test module now complies with the latest version of Visa’s Global Personalization Requirements.

The updated test tool will offer evaluation of a chip product to ensure it meets industry and payment scheme certification standards. This reduces a product’s time to market as the chip is aligned to Visa Specifications throughout the development life cycle and before applying for official Visa approval.