The are two companies working on producing the smart cards with biometric (fingerprint) sensor.
Epic One plans to transform the existing magnetic stripe data card into a smart payment card with built-in second factor authentication using fingerprint sensor. The card will also generate the one time code instead of storing the original credit card's track data. The main benefit of Epic One card (besides its obvious security features, of course) is that its acceptance does not require any changes in existing merchant payment infrastructure. However, as always, there is a price of convenience. First, the Epic One cards are more expensive than regular EMV smart cards (not to mention magnetic stripe cards which cost just several cents to issuing banks). Second, the credit card issuers will have to modify their authorization systems (both hardware and software changes) in order to process the Epic One card transactions. And finally, the Epic One card cannot be accepted offline - when network connection between the merchant store and payment processor (or payment processor and acquirer, or acquirer and issuer) is down for any reason - because the card does not carry the actual credit card's PAN (Primary Account Number) information but instead generates a temporary time-sensitive token which must be sent in real time to the issuer for validation in order to authorize the purchase.
Another company, SmartMetric, in addition to traditional EMV contact and contactless smart card with biometric authentication, plans to create offline bitcoin wallet on biometric smart card. The only missing piece is point of sale equipment (both hardware and software) that should be purchased, installed, and maintained by every merchant in order to accept such card and process the payment transaction through the bitcoin network.
Both ideas are interesting but time will tell if biometric authentication is going to be an important part of next generation payment technology or just another fancy gadget for geeks. There were already failed attempts to introduce biometrics in retail payments industry. Maybe this time they will be successful after Apple introduced the iPhone 5S Touch ID into the mainstream.
Epic One plans to transform the existing magnetic stripe data card into a smart payment card with built-in second factor authentication using fingerprint sensor. The card will also generate the one time code instead of storing the original credit card's track data. The main benefit of Epic One card (besides its obvious security features, of course) is that its acceptance does not require any changes in existing merchant payment infrastructure. However, as always, there is a price of convenience. First, the Epic One cards are more expensive than regular EMV smart cards (not to mention magnetic stripe cards which cost just several cents to issuing banks). Second, the credit card issuers will have to modify their authorization systems (both hardware and software changes) in order to process the Epic One card transactions. And finally, the Epic One card cannot be accepted offline - when network connection between the merchant store and payment processor (or payment processor and acquirer, or acquirer and issuer) is down for any reason - because the card does not carry the actual credit card's PAN (Primary Account Number) information but instead generates a temporary time-sensitive token which must be sent in real time to the issuer for validation in order to authorize the purchase.
Another company, SmartMetric, in addition to traditional EMV contact and contactless smart card with biometric authentication, plans to create offline bitcoin wallet on biometric smart card. The only missing piece is point of sale equipment (both hardware and software) that should be purchased, installed, and maintained by every merchant in order to accept such card and process the payment transaction through the bitcoin network.
Both ideas are interesting but time will tell if biometric authentication is going to be an important part of next generation payment technology or just another fancy gadget for geeks. There were already failed attempts to introduce biometrics in retail payments industry. Maybe this time they will be successful after Apple introduced the iPhone 5S Touch ID into the mainstream.
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