Jumio Adds Driver’s License Scanning To Its Payment Product

Jumio, a company that tried to make mobile payment easier by using the phone’s camera to sidestep manual data entry, on Tuesday (Oct. 21) introduced Bam Checkout, which the company is hoping will counter Apple Pay, according to TechCrunch. The new twist is allowing users to scan their driver’s license to autopopulate many more fields on e-tailer sites as well as provide some element of verification of the shopper’s identity.

No mention was made of the thief who steals someone’s wallet and who therefore has full access to both payment cards and a driver’s license, undermining the intent of the Jumio authentication.

Jumio claims customers including Airbnb, United, Kickstarter, Ridejoy, Gyft, Wallaby, Gopago, Western Union, YouWin, PokerStars, Skimm and World Remit, the story said.

“On the backend, Jumio invokes scans from its separate SDK products, and clients pay a flat monthly fee based on an annual contract that correlates to their expected volume. The pricing for BAM, meanwhile, remains the same as for the credit-card scanning technology involved with Netswipe – in other words, Jumio is rolling out two technologies for the same price as what it used to charge for one. Jumio’s product launch comes at a time when Apple’s payment technology, Apple Pay, has gone live not only for real-world purchases at point-of-sale, but also for buying things within mobile applications – like order-ahead food purchases, an Uber, or a product sold by an e-commerce retailer. Apple Pay now directly cuts into Jumio’s potential customer base, as it allows Apple device owners to pay for goods and services using the information they already have on file with their Apple account, no additional scanning steps necessary,” TechCrunch reported. “And arguably, a press of a finger to the Touch ID sensor on a smartphone or iPad is a much simpler process than having to hold up your cards to your smartphone’s camera each time you want to pay. Instead, such scanning technology is now commonly used for the initial loading of cards into a payment system – for instance, Apple uses card-scanning to add payment cards to Apple Pay. And PayPal-acquired Jumio competitor Card.io now offers scanning technology in PayPal Android and iOS SDKs.”