To address labor shortages, yet still deliver a frictionless customer experience, Yahoo! Mart is introducing a self-service point-of-sale (POS) cash register that allows customers to pay via facial recognition.
Consumers who want to pay this way will need to register their facial image on a website that’s linked to their Yahoo! Japan ID and PayPay account. At the self-checkout, customers will need to scan the barcode on their product, choose the “Face Recognition Payment” option and then look at the camera.
Once the facial recognition process is successful, the payment is completed by leveraging the consumer’s PayPay balance. Paying this way eliminates the need for customers to take out their smartphone or their wallet. According to Yahoo! Japan, with the customer’s consent, any facial recognition data collected will be kept strictly confidential and will only be used for authentication purposes.
Japan’s Biometric Efforts
Japan has been tinkering with biometrics since 2018, where a facial recognition payment project was launched within the confines of a regulatory sandbox. Now, this project has grown into an association, where a multitude of companies have expressed interest in entering the biometric fintech space.
Roughly 31 Japanese companies, from a wide range of industries, established a group to explore the best regulatory and legal frameworks for systems that enable customers to purchase products and service by simply facing a camera.
Biometric Technology Is Growing in Significance
The biometric technology market continues to make significant gains worldwide. With biometric authentication methods, including facial and fingerprint recognition, consumers have even more options when it comes to paying for goods and services.Biometrics have been adopted in a variety of industries, from public schools to airlines. Although there are plenty of reasons for businesses to adopt biometrics, the most significant ones have been to help mitigate cybercrime and to offer another contactless payment method.
