Pay bills by fingerprint
24/10/2006 16:40
Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news
Shopping with
cash or bankcards will soon be a thing of the past now that banks in China are
offering a new payment method that combines users' fingerprints with their bank
accounts.
The Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of Communications and Shanghai
Pudong Development Bank will be the first to offer this service, with more than
10,000 merchants in Shanghai expected to follow suit within the year.
Users
can register for free at their bank by showing their bankcards and verifying
their pin-numbers. The bank will take a copy of the user's fingerprints and will
set up new identity authentication codes. There is no charge for the fingerprint
payment service.
Since no one in the world has the exact same fingerprint,
this new payment method is very safe. The technology is based on the dermis of
the skin of a living body, so if a user's finger is not damaged beyond the
dermis, they can use this paying method, said a technologist. Moreover, when
registering, users will have two copies of their fingerprints recorded for to
assure their personal safety, he added.
In February of this year, the US
offered this payment system and now boasts more than 2 million users.
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