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Albertson's Inc., a Boise, Idaho-based chain of supermarkets, will install and test a biometric-based system to authenticate electronic transactions by the end of the first quarter next year. The system, which relies on mathematically derived templates of consumers' fingerprints, comes from San Francisco-based Pay By Touch, which has been aggressively marketing its tokenless processing service for much of this year to groceries and other large retail chains. Craig Ramsey, chief executive of Pay By Touch, disclosed the pilot agreement with Albertson's during a presentation he delivered today at a payments conference in Orlando, Fla., sponsored by the Food Marketing Institute. Other details about the pilot, including its precise timing and store locations, are not yet available, Shannon Riordan, marketing director at Pay By Touch, tells Digital Transactions News. Albertson's operates 2,300 stores across 31 states. The Albertson's pilot follows a pilot of Pay By Touch's in-lane system by Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., Charleston, S.C., which began a rollout in July (Digital Transactions News, July 22). It also comes after a test begun in August at a Pick 'N Save Metro Market store in Milwaukee (Digital Transactions News, Aug. 17). Pick 'N Save is part of the Roundy's Inc. collection of supermarket companies. Pay By Touch collects card and checking account data, along with fingerprint templates, from consumers at enrollment. After that, consumers pay by touching a scanner and entering a search code at the point of sale; they don't need cards, checks, or keyfobs. All data are stored at secure data centers maintained for Pay By Touch by IBM Corp. The company stores mathematically derived representations of fingerprints rather than the prints themselves. Besides four Piggly Wiggly stores in South Carolina and the Pick 'N Save store, the system is currently live at a Seattle supermarket and five video-rental stores. Pay By Touch has focused on supermarkets, but the company says interest is coming from a range of retailers, including video stores, pharmacies, and so-called big-box merchants.
