From Face to Palm Veins... Make Payments Without a Card

Shinhan Card Korea's First FacePay
BC Card Unmanned Payment & Lotte Card HandPay

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] It is the era of infinite transformation in simple payment methods. The era of paying using palm vein recognition or facial recognition without a card has arrived. Card companies are continuously launching services to secure a leading position in the simple payment market in response to challenges from fintech companies and others.

According to the card industry on the 9th, Shinhan Card began commercializing the Shinhan FacePay service at Hanyang University Seoul Campus from that day. This is the first domestic case of using the face for payment. It is evaluated as the first step in payment method innovation beyond plastic or mobile payments. Shinhan Card has been operating a pilot service for company employees since August last year.

FacePay is a method where users register their card and facial information once at a bank that supports face registration, then make payments at FacePay affiliated stores using only facial recognition. In this process, facial feature points are extracted as digital information and facial recognition technology is used to verify identity through an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm.

Shinhan Card installed FacePay registration infrastructure at the Shinhan Bank Hanyang University branch and Hanyang Women’s University sub-branch within Hanyang University, and established payment systems at 16 locations mainly around the campus, including cafeterias and CU convenience stores.

Yoo Tae-hyun, Head of Shinhan Card’s Digital First Division, said, "Facial recognition payment is the destination of payment innovation," adding, "We will enhance the convenience and security of FacePay to provide new value to customers and promote it as the future standard of payment."

Earlier, BC Card introduced an unmanned payment service using only an application (app) in January. At the unmanned convenience store 'GS25 Eulji Smart Branch,' a collaboration among BC Card, Smartro, and GS Retail, customers can simply scan product barcodes or take purchased items without a separate payment process. Lotte Card launched 'Hand Pay' in 2017, which uses palm vein recognition for payment. After pre-registering palm vein information, users place their palm briefly on a dedicated terminal to complete the card payment. It is currently installed and operated at over 90 locations including 7-Eleven, Lotte Mart, Lotteria, Lotte Cinema, Hi-Mart, and Oak Valley.

The reason card companies are developing new technologies like this is that with the expansion of non-face-to-face payments, physical cards are expected to disappear in the long term. In recent years, various simple payment services called Pay have emerged, and IT companies such as Naver and Kakao are transforming the payment ecosystem. According to the Bank of Korea, at the end of last year, the average daily usage of card-based simple payment services was 6.02 million transactions and 174.5 billion KRW, increasing by 56.6% and 44.0% respectively compared to the previous year.

An industry official said, "As non-face-to-face payments expand, the simple payment market is steadily growing," adding, "Card companies are also launching various services in preparation for a cardless society in the long term."