Verifone believes applications for the new technology are broad and make sense wherever age or identity verification is required, such as at liquor stores or hospitality venues.
The company has already completed proof-of-concept trials internationally and the technology is currently being trialled at coffee chain Starbucks overseas.
Kristy Gregory, head of merchant sales and strategic partners at Eftpos NZ.
Eftpos New Zealand head of merchant sales and strategic partners Kristy Gregory said the company works with the biggest retailers in New Zealand, so Kiwis can expect them to add a biometrics offering to their businesses in the near future.
“As the technology is rolled out by retailers, New Zealanders will have different ways they can pay, including biometrics for those who choose it,” Gregory said.
“Eftpos has been part of daily life here for over 40 years. We have the infrastructure, the relationships and the reach to ensure New Zealanders have access to the most capable, most secure payments platform in the world.”
Gregory said the evolution of the technology was driven by a shift in what the purpose of a payment terminal is.
New Zealand is one of the first markets globally to have access to Verifone’s new Victa terminals.
She said that rather than operating as a single-purpose device that processes transactions, the goal was a platform that runs loyalty programmes, ordering, digital identity, analytics and third-party applications from a single device at the counter.
The terminals also benefit from a single certification requirement across all of its form factors, meaning a business can scale from one terminal to thousands without going through re-certification each time.
While some shoppers may be concerned about the security of using biometric technology, Gregory said the terminals were designed to mitigate those risks.
“The terminal has biometric capability baked into its hardware, but Verifone itself does not store images or photographs. It holds mathematical embeddings, numerical representations of facial features that cannot be reversed into a recognisable image.
“The consumer’s actual biometric data sits with their chosen consumer platform, governed by the same privacy regulations that apply to any other digital service.”
The terminals are also certified to PCI 7.x and PCI DSS Level 1, the highest level of payment security available, and use point-to-point encryption and proprietary tokenisation.
For those still sceptical about using biometrics to pay for goods, those who prefer to pay by card or contactless will be able to continue to do so as before.
Victa terminals will begin to roll out in July and merchants can start using them as soon as the hardware is installed to access higher security standards, longer battery life and stronger processing.
For the more advanced features like biometrics, the timeline is set by the retailer, giving them flexibility to choose how and when they activate that capability.
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
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