Russia’s Alfa-Bank has begun testing a contactless “pay with a glance” service on its payment terminals, the company’s press service informed RBC.

For now, the service is available only to the bank’s employees who use the Android operating system. “Pay with a glance” technology is based on facial recognition and enables customers to make payments using their biometric data.

Alfa-Bank has clarified that the biometric system recognizes that a real, live person is in front of the camera, making it impossible to make payments with a photo or video.

The system may require a PIN code for added security. The bank emphasized that this is “the first example in the Russian market of full-fledged bio-acquiring solution according to the payment system standard which enables transactions not only via the Faster Payments System (SBP) but also with Mir payment cards.”

Alfa-Bank’s platform will allow customers to use face payments on payment terminals of other banks, which are expected to join the biometric payment service in the future. The service also plans to offer businesses additional features going forward, such as determining a customer’s age through biometric data.

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