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Ithmaar Bank has successfully launched the region’s first biometric-enabled Automated Teller Machine (ATM) network.
The Bahrain-based Islamic retail bank has ‘retrofitted’ all of its 43 ATMs with sophisticated fingerprint readers after having completed extensive testing of the security feature.
Ithmaar Bank chief executive, Ahmed Abdul Rahim, said: “This helps further reinforce Bahrain’s already prominent position as a key and innovative banking hub in the region.
“The new biometric payment network allows customers to interact with the bank in a safer, more secure and, ultimately, more convenient way. This opens up an exciting new world of possibilities which, in future, may also include points of sale.”
The initiative was first announced last September when Ithmaar Bank and Eazy Financial Services unveiled plans to launch the region’s first biometric payment network, supported by Labour Fund Tamkeen. And, in March, HRH Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa inaugurated the Eazy biometric payment network by making Ithmaar Bank the first biometric bank in the region.
Following the commissioning, customers are no longer required to use their cards at the bank’s ATMs. Instead, they can simply use their fingerprint along with their PIN to process financial transactions.
This provides a simpler, more secure way to process financial transactions than ever before, the bank says. To use the service for the first time, customers need to register their fingerprint data at their nearest branch. The one-time registration only takes a few minutes and allows customers immediate access to the new service.
The network is based on a platform that was developed by Eazy Financial Services, a Bahrain FinTech start-up, and built on a powerful Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) one of the most reliable and trusted biometric engines which is deployed and implemented in many countries around the world for both civil and forensic applications.
Eazy Financial Services added that it adopts a rigorous ‘identification algorithm’ which has earned the highest honours from several standards organisations and authorities.
