Are Bank Cards With Fingerprint Sensors The Next Big Thing In Banking? I Hope So

Natwest, a UK Bank has begun testing out a new security standard in their bank cards; biometrics. That’s right we’ve slowly become accustomed to fingerprint sensors on our phones and laptops and Natwest is experimenting with using that same technology on their bank cards.

The bank is trialling out this system in the middle of April and for the 200 customers who will be part of the trial, they’ll get to test out what is expected to be a more secure form of contactless payments.

Will this be the end of card cloning?

If you live in the cashless economy that is Zimbabwe you’ll know that cybercrime in the form of card cloning is a real thing. Last year there were over 154 cases and this year there’s already been a few high-profile cases so it’s clear this trend won’t be slowing down anytime soon. With biometrics in-play, it becomes increasingly difficult to clone cards since there are no pins involved anymore. The fingerprint data is stored locally on the bank card which means there is no information to steal from databases which makes cloning redundant. Though EMV compliant cards are more secure they can still be cloned which poses a problem for our own local banks which are looking to adopt the EMV standard. That’s not to say the EMV standard is redundant or useless, it’s quite effective but biometrics are more effective.

Though they are still just being trialled I certainly hope this becomes the new security for bank cards.