Fingerprint reading cards could be in your wallet later this year

The PIN system has a number of glaring flaws - REUTERS

Debit cards that are able to store and read fingerprints in place of a PIN could be in consumers’ wallets by the end of the year.

IDEX Biometrics, a fingerprint sensor developer, has been working with payments giant Mastercard to develop a new system that will allow people to verify a payment using a fingerprint.

The aim is to make transactions more secure, and faster, than existing PIN transactions. 

Chief executive of IDEX, Stan Swearingen, said that “multiple banks are set to roll out biometric cards”, and that each bank “may deploy as many as 100,000 biometric cards to account holders by the end of 2018”, rising to “many millions” from 2019.

The technology allows a card manufacturer to add a thin sensor to any card. The user registers their fingerprint with the help of a small separate device, containing a battery, without the need for a separate computer or internet connection.

An example of what the cards will look like, with the black fingerprint sensor in the top right corner

Then, the card is personalised to them. To authorise a payment, they place their finger on the sensor when paying, either when inserting the card into a payment terminal or holding it over a contactless sensor. 

The fingerprint sensor will be powered either by card readers when a card is inserted, or via the NFC (near-field communication) field created by a contactless payment terminal. 

IDEX claims that the technology works with all existing card payment systems, and it doesn’t matter if the user’s finger is wet or dry.

Last year, The Telegraph reported that Mastercard had introduced a card with a fingerprint scanner in South Africa. 

The current PIN system has a number of flaws, including consumers’ propensity for picking familiar numbers or writing their PIN down, and the relative ease of stealing or guessing a PIN.

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There are only 10,000 four-digit combinations for instance, compared to a one in 50,000 chance of matching someone’s fingerprint.

Fingerprint sensors are not without security concerns of their own, and last year researchers claimed to have developed a set of “master fingerprints” capable of tricking sensors.