Finger biometricsTurkish banking industry, a rich market for finger biometrics

Turkey is proving to be a lucrative market for finger vein biometric recognition firms with more and more banks adopting the technology.

Isbank, Turkey’s largest commercial bank, recently joinedthe growing ranks of financial institutions implementing finger vein biometrics at its ATMs. Meanwhile Ziraat Bank, the country’s largest state-owned bank, announced its plans to use palm vein technology at the end of last year.

Isbank began updating its ATMs in 2010 as part of an effort to become the largest network of biometric ATMs in the region. For its cash machines, the bank chose Hitachi’s Finger Vein authentication system.

So far, Isbank has installed roughly 3,400 finger vein scanners in 2,400 ATMs and 1,000 branches across the country.

“The bank sees the implementation of biometrics at ATMs as a natural evolution in the use of technology to provide new levels of security and flexibility for our customers. One of the main benefits of using finger vein technology is that customers can withdraw cash from the ATM without the need to use a card,” explained Sabri Gökmenler, the head of Isbank’s IT Division.

The finger-vein scanners come as part of the bank’s“Biyokimlik,” or Bio-identity, service which is available for all card and non-card transactions. In addition the bank plans to expand the biometric service to create the world’s largest point-of-sale biometric network.

Isbank is currently field testing the finger vein scanners with several merchants.

“Our customers seem to be genuinely interested in the idea of using biometrics in banking and payments transactions and Isbank will continue to innovate with new services based on biometrics,” said Hakan Aran, the chief information officer of Isbank.  “The bank recently launched an innovative ‘pay-by-finger’ concept using finger vein technology at the Cebit Turkey Technology Fair and we received very positive feedback from our customers.”

Meanwhile the bank’s biometric endeavors have proven to be a boon for Hitachi as the contract has been the firm’s largest to date outside the Japanese market.