NCR To Bring Biometric Payments To Bahrain

Eazy Financial Services, the Bahrain-based payment company, is reportedly gearing up to be the country’s first biometric payment network that will be enabled by NCR.

According to a report, consumers in the country will be able to register for the service via their fingerprint in banks that are linked to Eazy’s network. After that, they can use their fingerprint at any ATM or point of sale terminal instead of using a card. The report noted that NCR is helping Eazy develop the infrastructure to make this happen and provide services to financial institutions in Bahrain that are participating.

In the future, NCR will help the company expand into other areas in the Middle East. Eazy is using Authentic, a transaction processing platform from NCR, for the effort. The system can handle ATM and POS purchases as well as provide digital banking or a consumer payment service hub, noted the report.

Khaled Al Ahli, CEO of Eazy Financial Services, said in the report the company is “looking to NCR to help us build a robust infrastructure through its hardware and software expertise.” NCR has said the Authentic platform can integrate with any banking, fraud detection or internal and external systems, noted the report.

While this partnership is focused on the Middle East, NCR is also forging deals around the globe. In February the company announced that Bottomline Technologies has integrated Authentic, NCR’s intelligent transaction processing platform, into its Direct Faster Payment Service (FPS) solution. This new technology will allow U.K.-based financial institutions to connect securely to the Faster Payments network.

According to Finextra, U.K.-based financial institutions have always had to gain access to the Faster Payments network through larger sponsor banks that provided indirect links to the service. But in June 2016, after Bottomline Technologies’ Universal Aggregator service became one of only five FinTechs awarded the “trust mark” certificate, it was granted direct technical access to Faster Payments.