Natural Security and Discover offer secure biometric payments

Natural Security, a strong authentication technology company based in France, has announced a partnership with Discover Financial Services (Discover), a leading U.S. payments company, to experiment with Natural Security’s touchless biometric solution.

Discover will integrate Natural Security’s hands-free biometric strong authentication solution, enabling customers to execute simple and convenient, highly secure payment transactions with a biometric reader and wireless customer device.

“I believe that leaving your card in your pocket, simply touching a reader, and having the peace-of-mind that your payment is secured by your fingerprint is a right step in delivering (a) desired payment experience,” said Discover’s Global Head of Emerging Payments, Troy Bernard. “Equally important, there is minimal impact to the existing payments infrastructure as the transaction can be magnetic stripe or EMV-formatted.”

EMV stands for “Europay, MasterCard and Visa”, a global standard for inter-operation of chip cards, point-of-sale terminals and ATMs.

The Natural Security solution ensures that the secure personal device and its owner are in the same place at the same time. The authentication works by a user placing their finger on a reader to complete a transaction. The solution also secures the user’s biometric data as no centralized database is needed.

“Biometrics for banks can increase and simplify security during online transactions or in automated transactions” said Cedric Hozanne, CEO of Natural Security. “This simplicity is a direct response to the complexity and volume of authentication solutions currently available.”

A few weeks ago, Biometric Update reported on Banque Accord testing a biometric authenticated payment solution in France supermarkets using Natural Security’s solution.

Founded in 2008, Natural Security is a member of the Biometrics Alliance Initiative, National Association of Campus Card Users (Naccu) and the National Retail Federation (NRF), and its stakeholders include banks, retailers and manufacturers.

Article Topics

ATMs  |  authentication  |  banking  |  biometric reader  |  biometrics  |  financial services  |  fingerprint recognition  |  secure transactions  |  security  |  wireless