Point-of-Sale Fraud Prevention with Finger Scanning and Signature Verification

Point-of-sale payments, especially in conjunction with credit cards, provide a large market for biometric developers, as it is necessary to find ways to prevent fraudulent use of stolen cards. Finger scanners and signature verification provide a good fit for this type of usage. Finger-scanning devices are low in cost and can easily be set up at retail counters.

Hypercom, a leading provider of credit-card processing devices, has already developed a biometric finger-scanning pad that attaches to its terminals and can be used to identify a cardholder’s identity at the point of sale. The device costs about $120 per terminal to buy and install. Two merchants have already agreed to test it early this year. The company sees this as a good alternative to smart cards, which have not been very successful in the US.

Signature verification, on the other hand, seems like a natural fit for point-of-sale payments as the card user must sign his or her name anyway. Many credit card companies have already begun to take a serious look at the potential of this technology.

E-payments solutions provider CardinalCommerce, for example, recently teamed with signature verification developer Communication Intelligence Corporation (CIC) in an effort to provide merchants and consumers with secure biometric verification for credit card transactions. Under the agreement, CIC’s signature verification technology will be integrated in CardinalCommerce’s Payment authentication platform. The platform is also currently undergoing testing with MasterCard International’s Secure Payment Application.

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