Co-op Mid Counties has become the first UK retailer to go live
with a payment by biometrics system.
The organisation installed fingerprint readers at three of its
stores in Oxford as part of an alternative method of payment.
Co-op Mid Counties’ IT director, Rob Morgan, said the biometric
system was quicker than chip and Pin.
“Chip and Pin transactions take somewhere around seven seconds
to send the packet of information to the bank. With Pay By Touch,
it’s sub three seconds.”
To use the system, supplied by US company Pay By Touch,
customers must register with Co-op Mid Counties by providing
photographic identification and by submitting measurements of their
fingerprints.
If sufficient customers sign up for the technology during the
16-week trial, Co-op Mid Counties will roll out the system to its
other 147 stores in a process that it expects will take two
months.
