Amazon is creating checkout terminals for brick-and-mortar stores that would allow shoppers to link their card information to their hands, the Wall-Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. Shoppers could then pay for purchases with their palms, without having to use a card or phone. Amazon did not comment when asked about the service.
The company plans to install the terminals inside coffee shops, fast-food restaurants and other merchants that do lots of repeat business with their customers. However, plans are still at an early stage. Amazon recently began working with Visa to test transactions on the terminals and is in discussions with Mastercard.
Amazon discussed the project with card issuers. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Synchrony Financial expressed their interest in enabling consumers’ card accounts to work with these terminals, according to some of the people.
At the same time, the company recently filed a patent application for what it described as a “non-contact biometric identification system” that includes “a hand scanner that generates images of a user’s palm.”
