Amazon’s Instant ID Points Toward Instant Payments

Amazon
AMZN
has announced that its palm recognition biometric authentication service, Amazon One, will be used for payment, identification, loyalty and entry and more than 500 Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh locations across America by the end of this year. They are not alone. J.P. Morgan also intends to pilot biometrics-based payments using both palm and face identification with select retailers in the U.S. What is particularly appealing about this type of rapid biometric authentication is that it enables a retailer to combine both an authenticated payment transaction and an authenticated loyalty transaction in one “ceremony” so that the customer can complete both transactions without needing to present cards, a phone or anything else.

Mass-Market Payments

Now, some people (me, for example) might prefer the choice of presenting different credentials in different circumstances. On my phone I have both my work credit card and my personal credit card and might want to choose one or the other depending on what I am buying and where. Similarly, I have a ring that is linked to a prepaid card that I use when I am out and about in London and want to pay for the bus, subway or coffee without presenting my iPhone or reaching for the cards in my back pocket. But for a great many people who shop at Whole Foods every week and always pay using the same card and always present their loyalty card, the AmazonOne approach is simple, safe and speedy.