Mastercard and Google Pay to bring biometric card authentication to India

Mastercard and Google Pay announced a collaboration on September 16 to bring device biometric authentication to card payments in India, according to a statement issued through BusinessWire India. The feature was previewed at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai and is expected to roll out to eligible cardholders by the end of the year.

Customers who have saved an eligible Mastercard on Google Pay will be able to authenticate online payments using a fingerprint or facial recognition on their device, rather than entering a one-time password sent by SMS. The feature will apply to utility bill payments, mobile recharges and eligible online merchant checkouts, and will be available through participating issuing banks.

The authentication relies on Mastercard’s Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method, which checks a cardholder’s identity through biometric or passcode verification performed directly on the device rather than relying on a network-delivered code, according to The Paypers.

“By leveraging the biometric capabilities already available on smartphones, we aim to make everyday payments faster and more intuitive,” said Ravi Datla, senior vice president for customer solutions in South Asia at Mastercard, in the statement. Use of the feature will be optional, with cardholders and issuing banks retaining the choice of whether to adopt it.

Mastercard has previously piloted biometric authentication for online card payments in India through its Payment Passkey Service, and rival approaches already exist in the market. PayU has introduced Flash Pay, a biometric authentication option for its payment gateway with an SMS one-time password as a fallback, according to Biometric Update.