American Express to launch biometrics for online transactions

American Express is set to introduce a pilot program for fingerprint and facial recognition technology in its online checkout processes, with the aim of enhancing identity verification procedures to be more robust, efficient, and user-friendly.

The pilot program will initially be accessible to select consumer card members in the United States. American Express’s SafeKey service will now include biometric features in addition to traditional identification codes and in-app notifications.

The introduction of fingerprint and facial recognition capabilities in the service is a result of collaboration with industry consortia FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium, which have developed web authentication technology. Pending the success of the pilot, American Express plans to roll out these biometric features to all its consumer card members in the United States in early 2024.

JJ Kieley, Vice President of Digital Identity and Commerce Experiences at American Express, emphasised the importance of developing solutions to stay ahead of fraudsters. He stated that SafeKey’s biometric facial and fingerprint recognition would reduce friction while enhancing security for card members during the checkout process, making it as simple as unlocking a smartphone.