NEC Corporation has announced it is conducting trials for cashless payment services utilising its facial recognition technology in cooperation with units of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.
The trials will involve Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Card (Sumitomo Mitsui Card) and will take place between December 12, 2016 and January 30, 2017, involving approximately 1,000 employees at the dining facilities of SMBC's head office.
The Sumitomo Mitsui Card trials are taking place between November 21, 2016 and January 31, 2017, and involve approximately 400 employees at the company's Tokyo head office.
Payment Automatically Deducted
The service being tested in these trials utilises NEC's NeoFace facial recognition engine, which has been recognised as providing the world's highest level of authentication accuracy, to enable identity verification by matching employees' pre-registered facial images against the images taken by cameras installed in the employee dining facilities.
Payment for items purchased will then be automatically deducted from employees' monthly salaries for the following month.
Fraudulent Impersonation Extremely Difficult
This facial recognition technology has the unique characteristic of not requiring the installation of dedicated authentication devices, and offering enhanced security and peace of mind due to the fact that registered facial data is stored in the form of numerical values. This makes it difficult or impossible for a third party to identify the faces of registered users even in the event that they are able to obtain the data.
Biometric authentication makes fraudulent impersonation extremely difficult in comparison with other methods of authentication, and eliminates the need to carry Identity Cards (ID) or other forms of physical ID.
Branch Rollout to Follow
In the payment field, for example, there are high hopes for the development of new biometric technologies that will enable a diverse range of users to experience highly advanced services and payment methods.
In these trials, NEC, SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Card aim to verify the recognition performance, employee receptivity to biometric authentication, and operational aspects of the service, while gaining experience and know-how.
The next stage should the trial prove a success will be to provide secure, cashless (and card-less) payment services via facial recognition technology at branches.
