A Nestle grocery store based in Spain has introduced a facial recognition payment system designed by CaixaBank and the institution’s Payment Innovation Hub alliance. Samsung, Global Payments, Visa, and Arval are members of the alliance.
Nestle’s Face to Pay Market application can be downloaded from the Apple app store and Google Play store. Users have to provide their personal information, payment card, and facial image before they can make purchases at checkout lanes. The transactions are processed at checkout stations via a tablet that has a camera and an internet connection.
The Face to Pay system will go through a three-month testing phase, so that developers can check whether the platform can handle a large number of transactions (for example, during the Christmas season).
The Nestle facial recognition payments system has been announced following a similar project with a restaurant chain, called Vienna, at one of its locations in Barcelona, Spain.
CaixaBank’s management believes facial recognition software will help drive the “invisible payments” trend. The financial institution has introduced a biometric authentication method for processing cash withdrawals at ATMs in Barcelona and Valencia.
Notably, CaixaBank is one of the world’s first financial institutions, headed by Chairman, Jordi Gual, and CEO, Gonzalo Gortázar, to use facial recognition software to process withdrawals at ATMs without requiring a PIN.
CaixaBank says there are 6.3 million clients in Spain who use the bank’s digital services. The bank has also issued 17.2 million payment cards and handles around 28% of all POS terminal transactions in Spain.