Bob, from your link (not everyone reads links):
"Visa is joining with several leading wireless companies
including Ericsson and Nokia to jointly develop, pilot and
market mobile payment solutions. Consequently, Visa expects
that by 2003, 30 percent of its cardholders will likely be
making purchases using wireless payment devices, such as
mobile phones or personal digital assistants. . . .
"Visa is pursuing the viability of biometric technology, such as fingerprint and voice verification, which will provide Visa member institutions with increased options for cardless authentication to facilitate e-commerce and to deal with emerging information security and privacy issues."
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Nice to see Visa publicly talking about biometrics. Until now, I think they have been pretty quiet on this subject. When you are mentioning "cardless authentication" it implies you have memorized your credit card number and verified your right to invoke it by use of the biometric. That would be pretty convenient ("your fingers, don't leave home without them") as long as you have your credit card number memorized or handy. This, along with a biometric smart card scheme, also protects the cardholder, Visa, and the authorizing merchant from fraud losses. I can see the advantages to "cardless authentication" over a biometric cell phone, since you wouldn't have to build in a smart card reader into the phone.
Nice link. Something to look forward to. |
