Amazon Rumoured to Roll Out Hand Scanning Payments Soon

Today, one or the other tech giants make news every now and then regarding their innovations or inventions. The most recent and current tech buzz that is filtering into the techies' ears is the latest development of Amazon development in hand-scanning payments.

The rumor first broke in early September 2019, when reports emerged that Amazon was testing hand recognition-based payments at Whole Foods locations using its New York employees and some custom-fitted vending machines as an initial experiment. There were also New York Post reports that the technology might make an appearance at Whole Food checkouts this year.

As noted by a report, that news was followed by a December patent filing that described "a scanner device [that] is used to obtain raw images of a user's palm that is within a field of view of the scanner … The first set of images depicts external characteristics, such as lines and creases in the user's palm, while the second set of images depicts internal anatomical structures, such as veins, bones, soft tissue, or other structures beneath the epidermis of the skin."

Moreover, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon may sell pay-by-hand kiosks to other businesses. According to WSJ, Amazon plans to pitch the terminals to businesses with a lot of repeat customers, such as coffee shops and fast-food restaurants. Customers would use the terminals to link their palm print to a credit or debit card.

As per the Wall Street Journal, "Amazon envisions that customers would first use the terminals to link their debit or credit card information to their hands. Customers might insert cards into a terminal and then let the terminal scan their hands. From then on, they would only need to place a hand over the terminal to pay at a participating merchant."

WSJ reports that Amazon's pay-by-hand ambitions remain in the early stages. The tech giant is reportedly working with credit card companies, rather than trying to cut them out, because it values their ability to protect customer information. The e-commerce giant is working with Visa Inc. on the terminals and is in discussion with Mastercard Inc. as well. Card providers such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., and Synchrony Financial are also said to be interested in the technology.

However, the reports at this point are still based mostly on the data of unknown sources, a patent filing and some early reports about a possible pilot rolling out at Whole Foods later this year. At this point, it is safe to note that there are more unknowns than knowns, including what other goodies and incentives might come riding in with hand-based payment in the future. There might be a lot more reasons coming for consumers to try it and merchants to accept it than meets the eye in the early days.

But one thing which seems clear from all these unknown details is that Amazon is interested in shaping how consumers transact across the board, not merely when they're in the Amazon ecosystem, an effort consistent with its expansion into bill payments, connected commerce among a host of other areas. It would be interesting to discover how these rumors turn into reality in 2020.