Touch and Go: Will Biometric Payment Terminals Succeed?

March 2025

Fintech & Payments

Lorien Carter

Senior Research Analyst

Biometric authentication has already reshaped payments, from fingerprint-enabled smartphones to biometric payment cards. Now, the next step is cutting out the middleman entirely - paying with just a touch or a glance. But can vendors win over consumers wary of privacy risks and data security concerns?

Source: Juniper Research

We take a deep dive into three major players trialing this technology - a tech giant, a leading bank, and a global card network - while uncovering the challenges they need to overcome to succeed.

Mastercard

Mastercard has announced a biometric checkout programme that allows consumers to smile into a camera or wave their hand over a reader to pay. The first pilot was launched in five Brazilian supermarkets in 2022, with future pilots planned for roll-out in the Middle East and Asia region. Similarly, Visa and PopID, a consumer authentication service provider based on facial identity, partnered to launch a facial ID service for companies in the Middle East.

Source: PopID

It is notable that these innovations by the card networks are focusing on Latin America, and the Middle East and Asia region; suggesting these corporations believe these regions will be the most receptive to biometric innovations. This may be due to existing biometric systems for national identification, such as biometric voter registration systems, which create consumer familiarity with the technology. While there are no European users, almost half of the countries in Africa and Latin America use these systems. This, along with stricter regulations in the European Union regarding biometric data, suggests that Western Europe may be one of the last regions to experience biometric payments.

Mastercard has announced that their technology will be governed by their principles for data responsibility, which assert that consumers should control and own their personal data. However, without wider regulations to enforce these rules, consumers may not be reassured.

JPMorgan

JPMorgan has announced a roll-out of biometric payment terminals in the second half of 2025, in the US, also in partnership with PopID. These are designed to accept a wide range of payments, including contactless, QR code and biometric identification, enabling ‘Pay by Smile’ to complete transactions seamlessly. JPMorgan is aiming this at quick-service restaurants, event venues, and grocery stores in the US.

Source: JPMorgan

This represents the first step by major banks into developing biometric terminals, which is a logical move as customers already trust banks to safeguard their payment data. Merchants may be more willing to adopt payment solutions pushed by banks rather than private corporations, as banks have a long-established reputation for fraud protection.

Amazon

Amazon has introduced a biometric retail payment technology in all of its Whole Foods stores in the US, called Amazon One. This is a palm recognition solution allowing users to pay, enter, or identify themselves. In the last year, Amazon One has launched an app to simplify palm recognition sign-up; letting users sign up by taking a picture of their palm and adding a payment method.

According to Amazon, the service has been used over 8 million times since its launch in 2021 up until 2024.

Source: Amazon

While Apple and Samsung store their biometric data in the user’s device, Amazon is unique in that it stores palm data in the AWS cloud. This has raised concerns amongst US Senators about the safety of this encryption method. After all, if credit and debit card information is hacked, the card can be replaced; your palm cannot. However, Amazon has sought to address these privacy concerns by using temporary digital signatures which can be matched to the data and deleted in the case of hacking. According to Amazon, the palm data is not used for direct, one-to-one mapping (as seen with systems such as Apple Pay), but rather to link the data to a specific user account.

To enhance security, Amazon has implemented liveness detection to prevent spoofing and ensure that palm data is unmatchable with data from other sources; making it useless to third parties. These measures are vital for companies like Amazon; guaranteeing that even if the company was to relax its data-selling policies, the palm data could not be tied to a user’s identity beyond its intended use, such as linking it to a shopping account. This approach not only protects users' privacy but also helps to build and maintain trust in Amazon's biometric authentication system.

Future Outlook

Juniper Research believes biometric payments have huge potential in retail - but there are key hurdles to clear first.

Shoppers are growing frustrated with juggling multiple apps and loyalty cards just to access discounts. Seamlessly linking accounts to payment methods would be a game-changer in convenience.

However, adoption won’t happen overnight. Merchants must invest in new hardware and integrate it into existing systems, slowing the rollout. As a result, expect to see biometric terminals first appear in high-profile retailers looking to lead the charge in customer-centric innovation.

Lorien is a Research Analyst in the Fintech and Payments team at Juniper Research, and specialises in analysing and forecasting emerging trends and innovations in financial markets. Her latest reports have covered topics including Virtual Cards, Network Tokenisation, and CBDCs & Stablecoins.