Samsung to launch fingerprint mobile payment service

Samsung SDS, the IT service affiliate of Samsung Group, has announced that it is launching a new fingerprint mobile payment service with local payment gateway firms KG Mobilians and KG Inicis within South Korea, with global expansion planned for later.

The South Korean tech giant has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Korea Information Certificate Authority (KICA), a government-backed certificate licenser, and will later launch other authentication services based on biometrics, the company said.

"Going forward, we plan to not only target hardware manufacturers that make smartphones, but to also provide our biometric solutions to online service and security companies," said a Samsung SDS spokesperson. "We plan to offer clients that need biometrics solution with various business models and offer differentiated authentication services."

Samsung's self-developed biometrics authentication solution has received certification from the Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) Alliance, an international standard setter for online authentication, the company said, which will allow it to expand the business globally. The certification is called FIDO Ready.

The FIDO Alliance has around 190 members, including Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Visa, and PayPal.

"We expected previous authentication technology such as passwords, certificates, and OTP will be replaced by FIDO-approved methods. FIDO-backed biometric authentications will become the de facto standard of the future," said the spokesman.

The firm is forming a global integrated certification center, which it will start test running on its in-house intranet. It will later expand it to Samsung affiliates and clients, so that all clients can use a unified certification platform.

Samsung SDS did not elaborate on how its biometrics solutions work, but said it includes the use of fingerprint-, iris-, and voice-recognition technology for authentication.

Security will be boosted by using biological information as a key, the company said.

Meanwhile, Samsung last week announced that it aims to become one of the top 10 global IT service companies in the world, with the aim of boosting revenue to 20 trillion won by 2020.

Source: ZDNet Korea