biometric payment cards Archives

12Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Fintech, South Africa News, Tech

The short answer to long passwords

Our digital world has become increasingly risky where hackers access personal data and steal identities with little effort. It’s said that nearly half of all South African consumers have either been a victim of ID theft, or know someone who has, costing in the region of R1 billion a year to the economy. Identity theft is big business – where a fake ID can cost just R3000 on the dark web or in the dark alleys of the city. But are longer, more complicated passwords and security measures the answer for South Africans? A recent Google survey revealed that more than half of the respondents admitted to reusing the same password for multiple accounts. Around 80% of hacking breaches can be attributed to reused or stolen credentials. Pan-African fintech innovator, iiDENTIFii, however, has develop...

Securing the financial institutions’ physical and digital assets with biometrics

Gone are the days when the financial institutions’ (FI) only assets considered to be the gold, cash and other valuables in its vaults. With data widely acknowledged as the new gold, ensuring that only legitimate people get access into the FI’s premises and digital databases is more important than ever By: Nicolas Garcia, VP MEA, Biometric devices It is standard practice around the world for an individual to positively identify his/herself in a bank branch in order to affect all transactions. Means of identification can include what you know (PIN or password), what you have (ID document) and what you are (biometrics). It is no longer even a competition of which of the methods is considered as the most accurate for positively identifying a person – biometrics wins hands down, literally. Bio...

The future of cards, contactless and biometrics in payments

By Thomas Rex, SVP at Fingerprints It's an interesting time for the humble payment card. Card payments have steadily risen in the last two decades, but innovation of the card has slowed since the launch of contactless over ten years ago. Until, that is, the recent entrance of the biometric payment card. But what’s the value in updating the card further? Contactless cards have gained real traction in the last decade, especially in Europe. But with many markets across the globe still to take the leap to contactless, and others already looking beyond the card to mobile payments, how can we expect the card to continue to be a success? Limitless convenience Two major things concern consumers about contactless cards: security and convenience. For those already happy ‘tapping’ with contactless pa...