LET ME TOUCH™(startup) has put together two existing capabilities:
biometric
recognition and electronic financial transactions to create a
groundbreaking new
retail payment service. We have developed a highly scalable, secure and
easy-to-integrate platform to support its rapidly growing operations.
WORLD PROOF PROJECTS:
Cases.
Brazil - eToque (show me)
The retail sector is a potentially 'hot' application area for the biometrics industry.
Fraudulent transactions and identity theft are rising at unprecedented levels causing unacceptable losses to retailers. Biometric technology is proving successful in fighting these sorts of crimes, and is attracting attention from some of the world’s major retailers. This attention has not yet matured into contracts,however, so for now the use of the technology is confined to small chains of stores, which are using the technology primarily for secure cheque cashing.
One of the main reasons that a retailer might consider the use of advanced biometric technology in its stores is to counter the increasing levels of fraud within society.
Biometric Technology Today • June 2003
Retail industry fraud
Although estimates of retail losses vary widely, in the USA the Federal Reserve believes that cheque fraud and counterfeiting costs business about
US$10 billion per year, with the most common type of cheque fraud involving low-value counterfeit cheques drawn against well-known local firms and employers.
Meanwhile the wider problem of identity theft is even more worrying, exploding at a growth rate of about
300% a year, according to Aberdeen Group, a Bostonbased industry analyst firm. This equates to a financial loss from identity theft of
US$73.8 billion in the USA by the end of this year and US$221.2 billion worldwide.
The thief will tend to use stolen identity information to obtain credit, merchandise and services in the guise of the person whose information he has stolen. It is a profitable crime too, paying an average of US$9,800 per incident.
Recent experiences at retailers show that the introduction of systems that tie a biometric,
such as the fingerprint, to a cheque or transaction, will deter habitual fraudsters from even entering a location.
(Note that this does not necessarily stop fraudulent transactions per se, as it may just pass on the problem to a neighbouring store.
But it does help to eliminate fraud in any single store it is used in and at present that is enough of an incentive for individual stores or chains to investigate the technology.)
Once enrolled, the customers can identify themselves with their
fingerprint at the point-of-sale, retrieve their electronic wallet, and select
a payment type. The point-of-sale application then processes the payment much
like a traditional transaction. QuickPay Service