Paying for purchases is an area of mobile technology that is rapidly expanding. Besides the old staples like Google Wallet, the last year alone has seen a number of new arrivals designed to take paying with your mobile to a whole new level. These are of course, the likes of Android Pay and Samsung Pay. The latter being an extremely interesting one as it can essentially be used at almost any terminal due to its ability to make use of already existing retailer technology.
That said, about a month ago, an even more interesting proposition was put forward by MasterCard. In short, reports came through back in February that MasterCard was readying a service where you could pay for items by taking a selfie. An option which would completely allow the user to forgo having to remember passwords, log in details or pin numbers. Instead and along the same basis of how fingerprints are used to confirm identities, an image could be taken using your smartphone and then used to verify who you are and who is making the purchase.
Following on from those initial reports and today MasterCard has announced the first initial phase of deploying their ‘Selfie Pay’ service. Via a press release, MasterCard has confirmed that they have teamed up with BMO Financial Group to begin the launch of the program for residents of the U.S. and Canada. The program allows those enrolled to use either fingerprint identification and/or facial recognition to make payments for online purchases. To do so, users will need to have the MasterCard Identity Check mobile app installed on their smartphone and when checking out, they will be directed to take a selfie, which will then be followed by a redirection back to the main vendor website to complete the transaction. At the moment, this is only the beginning of the service roll out and currently can only be used by BMO employees who are corporate card holders and based in Canada and the U.S. Although, it is expected the service will be expanded later on in the year. Those interested in checking out the app needed for selfie payments, can do so by heading through the link below.