Costcutter shop in London is world's first store to offer fingertip payments

A supermarket at a London university has become the first in the world to let customers pay for their shopping using just their fingertips.

Shoppers at Costcutter at Brunel University can now pay for items using the unique vein pattern in their fingers.

Sthaler, the company behind the ‘Fingopay’ system, told the Daily Telegraph it is in “serious talks” with other major British supermarkets to adopt the technology.

It works by using infared to scan the patterns of veins in people’s fingers and links this unique “biometric” map to their bank cards.

Shoppers’ bank details are stored in the same way as with online retailers via payment provider WorldPay.

Customers can then turn up at the Costcutter shop and use their hands to make payments and it can take just three seconds to complete the transaction.

The layout of finger veins are almost unique and the chances of two people having the same vessel structure are about 3.4 billion to one, according to Sthaler.

Sthaler said the technology even works with wet, dirty or small cuts to the fingers as the scanner can see inside the skin.

Simon Binns, commercial director of Sthaler, told the Daily Telegraph: “This makes payments so much easier for customers.

“They don't need to carry cash or cards. They don't need to remember a pin number. You just bring yourself.

“This is the safest form of biometrics. There are no known incidences where this security has been breached.”