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Citibank Singapore intros biometric payments, impulse shoppers rejoice
Although biometric payment systems are still pretty rare -- good news for friends and relatives of folks who can't seem to stop buying those "As Seen on TV" items in the checkout aisle -- recent trials at stores like Albertsons and Cub Foods and even the school lunch line would seem to indicate that more pervasive rollouts are just around the corner. The latest -- and arguably biggest -- player to enter the biopayment game is none other than Citibank Singapore, which has been quietly distributing fingerprint readers to area businesses for the past month. Right now only Clear Platinum card holders have the option of going biometric, and since this group includes heavy representation from the tech-savvy 25 to 34-year-old demographic, it seems that Citibank is taking the right approach to ensure widespread adoption. For now it sounds like the systems are still few and far between -- with coffee houses and and a popular nightclub being the most visible participants -- but Citibank VP Anand Cavale predicts that deployment will quickly expand as more customers put their prints on file at local branches. Oh, and for those of you worried about finger-snatching becoming the hot 21st Century crime, you'll be pleased to learn that a seven-digit PIN is also necessary to complete transactions of this variety -- so even if someone saws off one of your digits to purchase a mocha latte, the time-consuming torture required to force that secret code out of you will probably prove to be too much of a hassle for today's mugger on-the-go.
Biometrics come to lunch lady land
Since today's children will inevitably grow up to be tomorrow's criminals, what better way to get their fingerprints on file than by using biometrics as a payment method for those delicious, nutritious school lunches? Lunch has certainly gotten a lot more high-tech since the days when we were students (you used to be able to fill up on Tastycakes and chips -- no MealPayPlus to ruin your atrocious dietary regimen), and now one school district in Georgia has taken it to next level by installing print scanners that allow students to instantly put meals on their growing tabs. Apparently the Rome City Schools have already had a PIN-based payment system in place for some time now, but as second grader Adrianna Harris opined, "The finger's better because all you've got to do is put your finger in, and you don't have to do the number and get mixed up." Good point, Adrianna, although with calculators already having taken away our adeptness at simple arithmetic and cellphones making it increasingly impossible to remember anyone's phone number, this new method seems like it might hinder yet another valuable life skill: the ability to properly operate an ATM. Still, we're all for technology making the lunch line move faster, but paranoid parents looking to keep their progeny "off the grid" will probably want to start packing bagged meals from now on -- along with keeping their disappointed kids as far away from Disneyworld as possible.
