Apple’s iPhone 5S has a fingerprint scanner and now Samsung’s revealed a print-reading Galaxy S5. Each allows for payments to be verified using a swipe of your digits. Is this the possible future of all transactions? Perhaps and Visa is now exploring the area as well to ensure it will be ready for the possible sea-change.

"Smartphones equipped with fingerprint scanners are definitely useful. There are all kinds of technologies that we are seeing, and a lot of innovation in this space. We’re working with these technologies, and they are all very interesting," said Jon White, Visa’s Head of Marketing, Mobile Strategic Alliances.

For the time being at least, it seems any such system would still need to be linked to a mobile device, and Visa’s current challenge is separating mobile device access authentication systems from the payment credentials — were someone to infiltrate one system through biometric readings, Visa wants to ensure your bank balance would not be compromised.

"It’s a different consideration between drawing a squiggle to unlock a phone or putting in a four-digit password to access my mobile to what’s required to access my bank account," continued White. "Secure management of payment credentials are the priority. I think there will be moves to form partnerships in this space though. That will continue, and we will pursue these technologies, but we need these multiple layers of encryption to preserve customer trust and integrity." […]