British Students Pay for Groceries with Finger Vein Scans
Imagine a wallet that can never be lost or forgotten at home. A wallet that automatically goes wherever you go and is always at your fingertips (literally). This futuristic scenario has recently come to pass for dozens of lucky British students at Brunel University in London. They can now pay for groceries at the local Costcutter supermarket through a scan of the veins in their fingers.
This brand new payment technology, known as Fingopay, was developed by the biometric firm Sthaler. It is more secure than technology that identifies people through fingerprints, because vein patterns are harder to copy or steal. Fingopay uses infrared light to capture a detailed map of each customer‘s veins and then links this map to their financial information, which is stored with the money transfer provider Worldpay (neither Sthaler nor the retailer have access to it).
According to Simon Binns, commercial director of Sthaler, "They don't need to carry cash or cards. They don't need to remember a pin number. You just bring yourself." Sthaler is talking to other major UK supermarkets, as well as to nightclubs and gyms, about adopting Fingopay.
WorldRemit Expands Its International Money Transfer Service to Malaysia
WorldRemit, a top online money transfer provider based in London, just launched service in Malaysia. Now expats and migrants living in Malaysia can use WorldRemit's app or website to instantly send money to over 140 countries. Michael Liu, WorldRemit's APAC Director, claimed that “Any financial technology business wanting to achieve a real business presence in Asia Pacific needs to be in Malaysia. Malaysia has a strong economy and a flourishing fintech community."
In 2015, Malaysia sent almost $6 billion USD in remittances across its borders, mostly to the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The country's central bank, Bank Negara, had set up a Financial Technology Regulatory Sandbox to encourage innovation and reduce redtape for the most promising fintch companies. WorldRemit expressed pride about being one of just four early entrants into this program.
Germany's Central Bank Publishes Paper on Blockchain
Researchers from the Deutsche Bundesbank shared a balanced opinion on the potential benefits and drawbacks of distributed ledger technology (DLT). They did not foresee wide adoption of DLT for individual and retail payments, because the technology in that realm is already highly efficient. "Particularly for payments within the euro area...the systems in operation have already been optimised for fast transfers and require a minimum of reconciliation, besides being able to process millions of transactions with ease every day." However, the researchers expect that blockchain could make a bigger impact on transactions that involve multiple intermediaries, such as international money transfers: "For payments like this, DLT could streamline a number of process steps and offer faster and cheaper settlement for end users."