By CGTN's Catherine Drew
A music venue in London has become the first merchant in the UK to offer customers the ability to leave their wallets at home and pay for their drinks with their fingers. The new finger vein technology, which links a person’s unique finger vein structure to their bank, has been used by London fin-tech startup Sthaler to develop Fingopay.
The new finger vein biometric technology has won the support of Hitachi, with whom Sthaler have a partnership to develop the Fingopay system.
Representatives of Fingopay showed up at the venue and chatted to customers about the advantages of signing up for this new payment method. After a short registration process, customers present their fingers to the Fingopay reader.
However, a survey of these customers finds no one has yet signed up for the technology, but they are open to the idea.
While this technology is already in use in Japan and Poland for some bank customers, this bar in London is unique in offering this method to pay for actual goods, with its owners confident that Fingopay will make the drink buying experience more efficient.
Those who study developments in biometric data see the use of unique body parts more reliable than finger prints and as a natural development, but are cautious about its appeal to a mass market.
Fingopay insists the biometric data and bank details they take are encrypted and secure.
But as the evening gets underway, those previously skeptical of the new system appear to be getting over their initial caution, perhaps because they are persuaded by the 10 percent cash back offered on their subsequent purchases.
