BMO to offer ‘selfie pay’ biometric verification technology to customers

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IN PRINT: Canada’s BMO is implementing MasterCard’s Identity Check biometrics service

Canadian financial services provider BMO Financial Group is to enable its customers to use MasterCard’s Identity Check mobile app to verify their online transactions via face recognition and fingerprint biometrics.

In the first phase of the implementation, BMO employees in the US and Canada will use their corporate cards to test the service’s potential to deliver “greater security and convenience”. The technology will then be made available to customers “more broadly” this summer.

“The MasterCard Identity Check mobile app will prompt participants to scan fingerprints or snap selfies to validate their identities via biometrics and, when verified, return to the merchant site to complete the online purchase,” MasterCard says.

The announcement follows confirmation that MasterCard’s biometrics service is to be launched across the US, Canada and parts of Europe this year following a successful pilot in the Netherlands that resulted in nine out of ten participants deciding that they would “definitely” like to replace their password with biometric identification.

A video gives an overview of MasterCard Identity Check:

“The use of biometric technology has become more common for consumers looking for convenient and secure ways to make purchases using their smartphones, so this was the natural next step for us as innovators in the payment security space,” says Steve Pedersen, vice president and head of North American corporate card products at BMO.

“The inclusion of this technology is going to make payment authentication easier and strengthen the security of the entire payments ecosystem.”

“It’s always exciting to introduce biometrics to new cardholders,” adds Catherine Murchie, SVP of North America processing, enterprise security and network solutions at MasterCard. “They quickly realise that they don’t have to sacrifice convenience for security.”

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