Mastercard is trying out purchase verification with selfies

Five hundred US MasterCard users will soon be testing out the company’s new system for quickly processing of digital payments, without having to input a PIN or password.

The pilot program will last for a few months, and during that time the participants will be verifying their purchases by pressing their finger onto their smart device and taking a “selfie.” The system will instruct the user to blick in order to avoid malicious actors simply using a photo of the customer.

According to CNN Money, fingerprint and facial recognition will be executed from the users’ mobile devices, via the MasterCard app.

MasterCard chief safety and security officer Ajay Bhalla believes that the new scheme will be especially welcome by the younger crowd, which is “into selfies.”

Apparently, users don’t have to worry about Mastercard storing a picture of them. It will be made into an algorithm on the device, and sent as such to and stored on Mastercard’s servers.

For this project, MasterCard has partnered with every smartphone maker and is finalizing deals with two major banks.

In the future, they also hope to offer voice and heartbeat recognition as a way for users to verify payments.