Pay By Touch and NCR Announce Strategic Alliance to Provide Complete Biometric Services

Pay By Touch™ and NCR Corporation today announced an alliance that combines both companies’ hardware and software solutions to offer merchants around the world a single point of contact for supporting their entire merchant and consumer biometric needs.

Using NCR’s biometric-enabled point-of-sale (POS) solutions, retailers everywhere can readily use the Pay By Touch authentication and payment service, giving shoppers a convenient and secure way to pay for goods with the touch of a finger.

Under the agreement, retailers using NCR’s Advanced Checkout Solution (ACS) POS software and the WinEPS solution from MTXEPS, Inc. can readily implement the Pay By Touch services. The companies’ first joint implementation is being rolled out in select grocery stores throughout the Midwest. In addition, the NCR FastLane™ self-checkout solution is currently “Pay By Touch Ready,” and integration with other NCR solutions is underway.

Enrollment Kiosks from NCR
Pay By Touch will also leverage an NCR self-service kiosk solution to streamline and enhance the Pay By Touch consumer enrollment process. Featuring NCR EasyPoint™ kiosk technology and software developed by NCR in conjunction with Pay By Touch, the kiosks increase convenience for shoppers to enroll, activate, and maintain their Pay By Touch electronic wallets. Pay By Touch will offer the kiosks to its customers under a reseller agreement with NCR. The kiosks are currently being installed by a top-ten U.S. supermarket chain.

Ultimately, the NCR and Pay By Touch alliance will help increase the adoption of consumer biometric authentication and payment processing around the world. Besides grocery retailers, the companies are developing solutions for the general merchandise retailing, food service and health care industries.

“Consumer demands for convenience are growing at an unprecedented pace, and retailers of all sizes need a fast, simple and secure solution that provides the ultimate customer service,” said Stephen Reade, senior vice president of product of Pay By Touch. “Our alliance with NCR addresses these needs with a fully integrated solution that improves the checkout experience — and merchants’ top and bottom lines — while also positioning our services for expansion into other vertical markets.”

“Thanks to this alliance, thousands of stores using NCR solutions — from independents to national chains — can readily implement the Pay By Touch service to enhance the customer shopping experience while fighting the high cost of fraud and safeguarding against identity theft,” said NCR Assisted Service Solutions Vice President Greg Egan. “We’re excited to be part of a service that will ultimately change the way we pay for things everywhere.”

Shoppers can use Pay By Touch after a quick one-time sign up online at www.paybytouch.com, or at an enrollment kiosk in a participating store. Shoppers simply include their existing financial accounts and loyalty to create an electronic wallet accessed by a simple finger-scan at the point of sale. Each participating merchant decides which types of payment accounts they will accept from the Pay By Touch wallet. The Pay By Touch service is highly secure because of the uniqueness of the finger scan and because all data is encrypted and stored at secure data centers.

To date, the Pay By Touch consumer biometric payment solution has been deployed in major retailers throughout North America and the United Kingdom. Pay By Touch plans to launch in additional national and international retail chains later this year.