Identity verification provider iProov says its biometric tool has achieved a notable milestone.
The science powering that tool, iProov’s Dynamic Liveness Solution, is the first to receive the new global certification on face biometric identity verification from industry association the FIDO Alliance, iProov said in a Thursday (June 6) news release.
“This program is the premier certification to assess the performance and usability of remote identity verification systems based on facial biometrics,” the company said in the release.
“In a rigorous process conducted by Ingenium Biometrics, a FIDO face verification accredited lab, which consisted of no less than 10,000 tests, iProov’s Dynamic Liveness achieved a flawless success record with no attacks passing the system.”
Amid an explosion of digital identity verification — driven by the worldwide digital transformation — FIDO is working to help organizations to make informed decisions when selecting biometric identity verification solutions and ensure access to digital services for everyone, iProov said.
“For the first time, governments and enterprises worldwide can rely on an industry-recognized, large-scale biometric performance standard and certification program,” said Andrew Bud, founder and CEO of iProov.
“Finally, they can specify and procure biometrics with presentation attack liveness defenses with confidence in a third-party benchmark.”
As PYMNTS wrote last month, one of the newest frontiers in the continuing evolution of payments is using biometric information for authentication, where someone’s very characteristics — fingerprints, facial features or iris patterns — are used to authorize transactions securely and safely.
“Biometric authentication, while it exists for other aspects of our lives, is not a huge thing at this stage for payments — but as far as payments goes, it is the future,” Marc Hopkins, vice president at E-Complish, said in an interview with PYMNTS.
And even though biometric authentication for payments isn’t yet omnipresent, the technology is set to reshape how consumers interact with the payment ecosystem as well as the daily transactions that make up their everyday lives.
“The ability for a customer to go buy a cup of coffee and not have to have to whip out their phone or their wallet, to simply just place their finger and scan to process a payment is ideal,” Hopkins said.
“We currently are pretty much a cashless society, so you can think of bio payments as making us a cardless and eventually phoneless society,” he said.
The Justice Department reportedly told financial regulators that it didn’t have sufficient evidence to block the proposed merger between Capital One and Discover.
This decision would allow the two banking regulators that must approve the deal — the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — to approve the transaction, Bloomberg reported Thursday (April 3).
The Justice Department told the regulators of its decision in a confidential memo, the report said, citing unnamed sources.
The Justice Department did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.
Staff at the Justice Department were divided about whether the merger should be challenged, and the new antitrust division chief, Gail Slater, made the decision that there was not enough evidence to do so, according to the report.
Earlier, under the Biden administration, antitrust officials at the Justice Department had said they had some concerns that the deal could harm competition, per the report.
Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department looked at not only the competitive factors of the deal, which is what it normally focuses on in bank mergers, but also how the deal might affect different customer segments, fees, interest rates, bank locations, product variety, network effects, interoperability and customer service, the report said.
Capital One announced its planned acquisition of Discover in February 2024, saying the deal would create a global payments platform with 70 million merchant acceptance points in more than 200 countries and territories.
“Our acquisition of Discover is a singular opportunity to bring together two very successful companies with complementary capabilities and franchises, and to build a payments network that can compete with the largest payments networks and payments companies,” Richard Fairbank, founder, chairman and CEO of Capital One, said at the time in a press release.
The deal took a step toward completion in December when it received approval from the Office of the Delaware State Bank Commissioner.
It took another step forward in February, when the two companies said that more than 99% of their shareholders had voted to approve the merger. When announcing the votes, Capital One said it expected the transaction to close early this year, subject to approval by the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
