Touche, a startup based in Singapore, raised $2 million last June and is launching in restaurants and stores this year, allowing consumers to sign up with their fingerprints and attach their aliases to a credit card, which would enable them to use their fingerprint on any Touche device globally.
It works like this : the first time you visit a merchant, you can pay with your credit card and use the device to link the card to your unique, fleshy signature. The device will scan your fore and middle fingers and connect it to your profile. The next time you visit the store, you can make purchase my touching your fingers to the machine to authorize the payment.
But the devices are only at a handful of venues thus far, while the consumer adoption rate has yet to be seen. While more and more airports globally are requiring biometric information, it is less clear how willing customers will be to hand over their fingerprints for the promise of more convenience.
"Is it their concern? I'll be lying to say no," Sahba Saint-Claire, founder of Touché told CNBC. "But I've had ladies in their 60s registering, millennials registering, and professional people in suits registering, so I think the solution we're talking about transcends age, gender and race."
Touché, says it's product expands beyond just a mobile payment solution. In addition to payments, the biometric data records the contents of a purchase too.
"What we allow the merchant to do is, is to know who is coming into their business and what they're eating, how much are they spending, what their preferences are, and therefore, they can actually repeat their repeat business," Saint-Claire said.
The company charges vendors an installation fee for each device along with a monthly fee, depending on individual partnership contracts.
Source : cnbc.com techinasia.com
