New Innovation: Use your Veins to Pay for Goods

There’s nothing worse than getting to the checkout in a busy shop and then realising that you’ve either forgotten your cash or you don’t have sufficient funds to pay for your purchases. All that is about to change, however, thanks to new technology that will allow you to pay with a swipe of your palm.

The even more impressive aspect of this new biometric cash concept is the fact that the technology actually analyses the blood in your veins in order to determine that you are who you say you are and that you have the means to pay. It’s a decidedly science-fiction concept that has been developed by Japanese electronics giant Fujitsu.
A simple four-step process allows you to swipe, enrol, finish and review your purchases in a clever move that could see the whole messy business of carrying enough cash or cards with you turned into a thing of the past. Alongside the obvious convenience benefits, there is also the fact that it could make people less vulnerable to muggings and robberies.

PulseWallet

How does it work?
Called PulseWallet, this imaginative new idea could effectively mean that you might no longer need to carry either cash or cards to pay for your shopping reuqirements. The invention works by scanning the vein patterns in your palm in order to identify you via an infra-red-style light that is combined with your phone number in a process that produces safe and secure verification.

So does it work and is it any good? Well, PulseWallet, the development company behind it claims that it is 99.99992% accurate, and the combination of the biometric process alongside the complement of your phone number makes it a seemingly impenetrable means to buy goods and services. Adding to the appeal is the requirement for a proper blood flow to be present for the system to recognise your identity. What’s more, because the data is collected from under your skin, it doesn’t leave a traces of your ID, which is the result when you’re working with fingerprints.

PulseWallet

What will it cost?
The service will be free to use although there will inevitably be a cost passed on to customers, presumably as some sort of merchant fee. PulseWallet makes a big song and dance about privacy, security and convenience too though, so the idea has the potential to be big news for consumers as it’s rolled out to a wider audience. At present its availability is limited, with the service all set to go on trial shortly. From there, PulseWallet could be on general sale before the end of the year.
A look through the frequently asked questions section of the PulseWallet website makes for interesting reading if you’re curious about the implications of such a vein-reading concept. What, for example, would happen if someone cut off your arm it asks? The answer is encouraging… “Even if someone, somehow, got away with sneaking a chopped off hand into a grocery store, they wouldn’t be able to use it at check-out due to a lack of blood flow in the severed hand.”

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The other options
This is just one of a variety of biometric-style options that are coming to market in order to make the spending power of the consumer both easier and more secure. American computer giant Apple, for example, unveiled it Touch ID when it released its latest iPhone model, although theoretically at least, the PulseWallet concept has the potential to be more safe and secure because there’s no traceable fingerprint.