JPMorgan brings biometrics to the POS, giving the tech a major boost

The news: JPMorgan Payments rolled out two point-of-sale (POS) terminals that include biometric authentication features, the JPMorgan Paypad and the JPMorgan Pinpad, per PYMNTS.

Both terminals will include facial recognition and infrared palm vein cameras, among its list of features. They will launch in the US in the second half of the year and later internationally.

Why this matters: JPMorgan is all in on biometric payments tech, laying out its biometric payment ambitions in March 2023. The payments giant has been piloting a biometric checkout solution powered by PopID that uses facial identification technology to authorize payments.

This POS terminal will be the bank’s first proprietary venture in biometrics and comes as other payment providers also embrace the tech. Verifone recently rolled out a suite of POS devices that include face and palm authentication capabilities.

Our take: A major bank like JPMorgan embracing biometrics could help it become more mainstream—pushing other POS providers to keep up. But even with this industry buy-in, getting consumers to adopt it won’t be easy.

Only 15.6% of US consumers are comfortable using face recognition to make a purchase, and only 12.5% would be comfortable using palm recognition, per our July 2024 US Cash-Back Credit Card Emerging Features survey. Privacy and security concerns abound and will have to be overcome before the tech can take off.

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