It is a habit that many of us have adopted since confinement: contactless payment by bank card. More respectful of barrier gestures than the traditional keyboard code and much helped by the raising of the ceiling to 50 euros, it has become more democratic. And the next step is already in preparation: in the fall, fingerprint bank cards will appear. Banks' objective: to surf the popularity of contactless technology and offer a new secure product to their customers.
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The biometric bank card differs little from current cards. Same size, same design. The only change is a sensor located on the front of the card. To activate it, you will need to register your fingerprint, either with a box delivered with the card, or directly at the branch. Then, to pay, no need for a code, you just have to place your thumb on the fingerprint sensor, then it's the same principle as for contactless: we apply the card on the reader, it beeps and it's good ! "It is a card that has a very high level of security," says Jean-Marie Dragon, electronic payment and innovative payments manager at BNP Paribas.
No payment limit
So what interest compared to conventional contactless payment? "The great benefit of the biometric card is that I can pay without contact regardless of the amount of the transaction," says Jean-Marie Dragon. "I am not limited to a ceiling of 50 euros. I can pay 100 or 500 euros since I have authentication by fingerprint which replaces the confidential code." An advantage already known to smartphone owners who have integrated their card into a device like Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, since payment via smartphone has the advantage of being secure thanks to fingerprints and even facial recognition.
BNP Paribas, which is finalizing a test period with its employees, will be the first bank to launch this new bank card in France in the fall. Initially, this will affect 10 to 15,000 of its customers. The goal is not to replace one card with another but to leave the choice to our customers ", underlines Jean-Marie Dragon. Other banks will follow in the process, starting with Crédit Agricole and Société Générale.