Middle East bank launches PopID and Visa biometric payment service

Qatar commercial bank QNB Group has switched on its biometric payment services based on technology from U.S. face verifier PopID and Visa.

The service will be sold to Qatar merchants, according to QNB. The bank is using PopID’s proprietary face biometrics software and Visa’s tokenization.

QNB executives say theirs is the first such service in Qatar. Merchants are promoting in-store signup using QR codes.

Adel Al-Malki, senior executive vice president of the bank’s retail banking group, says the new service follows a “rich range of payment options that includes functionality such as contactless payments, QNB MyPOS (tap-on-phone payment acceptance) and Samsung/Google/Apple pay.”

Users register their face with a selfie that PopID‘s face algorithm renders in code. After onboarding, the Visa app tokenizes the customer’s account number and links it to their face template QNB’s mobile app authenticates the account owner in future transactions.

The system was trialed for biometric payments at cafes during the recent FIFA World Cup.

A company announcement says onboarding takes “a minute or two.”

PopID CEO John Miller says, “In America and Japan, we have demonstrated that allowing consumers to link PopPay to loyalty accounts and payment methods substantially increases speed of ordering and check out, drives loyalty engagement, and reduces fraud.”

The deployment comes days after PopID integrated its mobile app PopPay with XPR‘s POS software loaded onto Samsung’s Windows 10 IoT enterprise kiosk. The software will verify faces at check-in and checkout.

Article Topics

biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  face biometrics  |  facial verification  |  PopID  |  Qatar  |  selfie biometrics  |  Visa