Make Payments Using Your Palm Through Amazon One

Amazon has recently announced a new payment technology that doesn’t use plastic or cash, rather it uses the palm of your hand for making the payment. Even though the palm scanners of Amazon One would not have much traction, there can still be some privacy concerns which may become a roadblock in the widespread adoption of the service. However, on the other hand, the company says that it is actively discussing expanding the technology to the potential customers.

The Amazon One technology scans your palm to know your identity. It is the newest contactless payment technology that Amazon has planned to test at two of its stores in Seattle.

Working of the Amazon One Technology

Biometric authentication is an extensively used technology which is running over the years. Users must be familiar with the two most widely used, the facial and the fingerprint recognition technology. With the help of these, they can unlock their phones in a matter of seconds.

This new form of payment technology by Amazon uses proprietary algorithms to scan the features like vein patterns and more, below the surface of a user’s palm.

With the help of this technology, users will have a contactless payment procedure, unlike the fingerprint scanners, where users have to press their palm on to the fingerprint reader.

There is no need to have a regular Amazon.com account for signing up to Amazon One, in fact, you will just need your phone number and your palm and of course, your credit card account you have attached with Amazon. Once you scan your palm, it will get matched with your credit card, and your payment will get processed.

This technology has been planned to get tested at two Amazon Go stores in Seattle, where the customers will be able to make the payment without a checkout process.

How Amazon One Could Impact the Credit Card Industry

The credit card industry has introduced EMV chips and methods like contactless payments as measures related to payment security. Even though the mechanics of both of them might be different, still they use similar technology. Their technology relies on unique tokens that mask the details of the consumer’s card, which helps them in preventing their information from hackers.

Amazon has stated that your palm’s image will get encrypted and then get securely stored in the cloud. However, it is still unclear how Amazon processes the procedure further with the retailer after any palm signature gets confirmed. The palm signature adds an extra layer of security.

The payments through Amazon One can also be considered as card-present transactions, as they have similar characteristics like the digital wallets, Google Pay & Apple Pay. This simply means that the credit card companies will be able to receive merchant fee revenues continuously.

If we consider this as a long-term solution, the Amazon One technology can become a big win for the credit card industry. We say this because this technology will slightly shift the burden of security from the credit card industry and also the card issuers would be earning a good amount of fees on every transaction.

Why It May Not Get Much Traction with the Customers?

Even though the palm scanning technology of Amazon would be of significant advantage to the credit card issuers, it might have to face difficulties in its widespread acceptance among the customers just like the digital wallets.

The biggest reason for this will be the privacy concerns of the users, and it can become a significant roadblock in the widespread adoption of the technology. Also, Amazon doesn’t carry a great track record in terms of data privacy as it was criticized for selling its facial recognition software directly to the law enforcement agencies of the U.S. However, Amazon, later on, put a year-long prohibition on its direct sales so as to give some time to legislators in order to create some regulations concerning this use.

Also, Ring, which is one of the subsidiaries of Amazon, that manufactures products related to home security, became the main target of complaints by civil rights, for its partnership with the police departments over the country.

Amazon has stated that the users if required, can delete the information that they have on Amazon One directly from the website. However, the company still confirms that it does retain some transcripts related to voice interactions that customers have with the Alexa devices even after customers delete the audios.

Early Verdict

Amazon One may succeed in its trial phase and might become a great alternative to digital payment methods, but it seems like it would still not be able to become a powerful payment method, at least not for a reasonable amount of time.

Source: Make Payments Using Your Palm Through Amazon One