BIOMETRICS

FOR RETAIL

POINT OF SALE BIOMETRICS INTEGRATION

BAYOMETRIC

MARCH 12, 2017

Written & Compiled By

Danny Thakkar

CEO & Co-Founder

“ The global biometrics market will increase to $15 billion this year from an estimated $7 million dollar just three years back.

” BIOMETRICS RESEARCH GROUP, INC. The parent organization of BiometricUpdate.com

POINT OF SALE BIOMETRICS INTEGRATION

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

INTRODUCTION

Biometric technology is identifying individuals

based on their unique physiological or

behavioural characteristics such as fingerprint,

iris, voice, face etc. Due to this characteristic

biometric technology is highly accurate and

reliable. There are many types of biometric

technology such as fingerprint recognition,

voice recognition, iris scanning etc. Biometric

technology has been successfully adopted in

industries such as law enforcement, banking

security, border control, healthcare etc. and its

adoption in POS solutions within the retail

industry is also increasing quite rapidly.

According to Biometrics Research Group, it is

predicted that the global biometrics market will

increase to $15 billion this year from an

estimated $7 million dollar just three years

back. According to another technology firm

Frost and Sullivan, it is predicted that almost

half a billion people will be using biometric

technology equipped smart phones by 2017. So

we can see the tremendous potential of

biometric technology and its adoption in retail

POS will surely provide faster and more secured

ways of managing the business transactions.

The biggest benefit that biometrics could offer

the retail industry is POS payment

authentication because traditional methods

such as passwords or PINs are considered

obsolete and vulnerable to security breaches.

WHY ARE BIOMETRIC POS SYSTEMS NEEDED?

Modern day point of sale software systems

have evolved over the years and so have the

transactional complexities and nuances of the

retail industry. These software systems should

be user friendly and agile so that transactions

can be handled quickly leading to profit

maximization. Thus modern day POS systems

need a sophisticated technology which can

assure reliability, security, accountability and

quickness. Biometric technology such as

fingerprint identification can meet all these

criteria without sacrificing precision.

Fingerprint POS at ration shops in India (Photo: The Hindu)

In the retail industry, employees traditionally

used swipe cards or password and PINs for

logins. But these identification methods are

now considered outdated and expensive. Often

employees forget or lose their PINs or ID cards

leading to unnecessary expenses and

productivity interruptions. This in turn could

cause a great financial loss to the business

owners. Using passwords or ID cards also lead

POINT OF SALE BIOMETRICS INTEGRATION

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

to buddy punching and payroll frauds. Buddy

punching is another common problem in the

retail industry in which one employee clocks

into the POS system for an absent or late

employee using their ID cards or passwords.

Biometrics is a more accurate method of

identification as they cannot be shared and

integrating it in a POS system can help

eliminate the loopholes of traditional

identification systems. Biometric based systems

such as fingerprint recognition can eliminate

the problems of buddy punching and allow for

more secure manager approvals. Thus

integrating biometric technology in a POS

system can add a lot of value to the customer

by boosting accuracy, security and increasing

the overall efficiency of the business.

FINGERPRINT BIOMETRIC TECHNOLOGY IN

POS SYSTEMS

Today's retail industry is fast paced and

demanding. Business owners have to

continuously deal with problems such as payroll

theft and POS shrink. Hence they look for

secure solutions which can maximize their

return on investment (ROI) and allow tracking

the workflow thus eliminating time theft and

fraudulent transactions. And at the same time,

these solutions should also be cost-effective.

More and more retailers are choosing to

integrate biometric fingerprint recognition in

their POS systems as it is affordable,

convenient and the most widely used biometric

identification method.

Swipe cards or passwords can be stolen and

transactions easily carried out by the individuals

having these stolen cards or passwords in their

possession. Biometrics, on the other hand is

almost fool proof as it is based on the inherent

characteristic of the individual. Fingerprints are

unique to each individual and even identical

twins do not have the same set of fingerprints.

Hence it is the most accurate form of

identification and implementing fingerprint

recognition technology in POS systems will

ensure peace of mind to the retailers and faith

in the POS systems. They will be able to

conduct their retail operations smoothly and

efficiently while at the same time increasing

employee productivity.

HOW CAN INTEGRATION OF BIOMETRIC

TECHNOLOGY BENEFIT POS SYSTEMS?

Even though retailers would like to believe in

the honesty and integrity of their workforce,

they still need to adopt loss prevention

technologies in their POS systems that will help

curb fraudulent transactions, safeguard their

business and enable profit maximization. A

report by the U.S. Department of Commerce

estimates that American businesses lose a lot of

money due to employee dishonesty which

amounts to more than $50 billion annually. The

magnitude of this amount indicates that it is

indeed an arduous task to prevent losses

happening due to employee thefts. Hence

retailers cannot rely on conventional methods

to manage inventory or employees as they

have many loopholes and cannot provide

effective security against frauds.

Biometric technology such as fingerprint

recognition adds an added layer of security to

POS systems which ensures that only the

authorised individual can access his account

POINT OF SALE BIOMETRICS INTEGRATION

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

and must also be present physically at the time

of transaction. Fingerprint recognition is highly

reliable as it is based on the inherent

characteristic of the individual and also

extremely difficult to spoof under normal

conditions. Thus it eliminates the problems

associated with swipe cards or passwords which

can be shared among employees and helps in

maintaining a concrete audit trail of each

transaction.

Moreover, there are expenses associated with

replacing a lost or stolen card. Resources also

need to be spent in resetting a forgotten or

compromised password. The IT help desk might

have to spent unnecessary time in resetting

forgotten passwords or PINs of employees. A

report by Gartner Research estimates that IT

help desk spend as much as 40% of their time

in resetting forgotten PINs. This leads to a huge

time drain and affects productivity levels.

Integrating biometric fingerprint recognition in

POS systems will remove any need for

password management and instead allow retail

establishments to focus on their core

competencies. Employees can securely and

accurately clock in their time with a quick scan

of their fingerprint. So the need for scanning

cards or entering PINs are totally eliminated. A

biometric enabled POS system will enable

accurate identification of employees and

retailers no longer need to worry about

employee identity theft.

Employee time theft and employee retail theft

are the areas contributing to the highest

percentage of point of sale shrink over the past

few years and the numbers continue to rise.

Deploying a biometric fingerprint reader at POS

systems helps to seamlessly tie employees to

each sale and ensures accountability of every

discount, return or gift card transaction. Thus

retailers now have more control over employee

activity and are able to audit trail every

completed sale to the sales person. Hence

cases where unscrupulous employees scam or

rip off retailers through false returns and phony

transactions can be totally eliminated with the

help of biometric enabled POS systems.

Biometric fingerprint readers allow accurate

capturing of employee time and attendance

data which is critical for efficient workforce

management. For hourly employees, the time

calculations are straightforward and

transparent. It is more secured than card based

systems which have many loopholes such as

buddy punching. The benefits of integrating

biometric technology in POS systems are

immediately realised in terms of reduced time

and attendance fraud and better adherence to

corporate policies by allowing secure manager

approvals and transaction overrides.

Shoppers can also benefit from fingerprint

recognition while making payments at POS

terminals. Nowadays, many brick and mortar

businesses such as cafeterias are using

fingerprint solutions in their POS systems that

enable their patrons to make payments quickly

without the need to remember passwords or

cards.

INTEGRATING FINGERPRINT RECOGNITION IN

POS SYSTEMS

Touch N Go is a developer friendly biometric

solution that allows easy integration of

POINT OF SALE BIOMETRICS INTEGRATION

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

fingerprint recognition technology into existing

point of sale systems. The unique nature of the

integration methodology of Touch N Go allows

for very quick fingerprint integration. In fact,

fingerprint integration into existing POS

systems can be accomplished with just four

lines of code and does not take months or

hours. Even with no prior experience, Touch N

Go allows fingerprint recognition to be

integrated into applications instantly and with

no learning curve.

Touch N Go provides the highest level of

security and a solid identity management

infrastructure for existing applications. The GUI

is completely pre-developed and ready to use

and hence developers are not required to spend

any time on this component. Also, the client

and server installation takes just a few minutes.

Touch N Go has support for a variety of

programming languages such as C, Java, .NET

etc. and programmers also have access to the

inbuilt applications and source code in different

languages. It has features such as fingerprint

deduplication and fingerprint quality checks.

These checks are performed in the background

to ensure that duplicate fingerprints do not get

enrolled in the system and also only the best

quality fingerprints get enrolled. Thus retailers

looking to rapidly adopt fingerprint recognition

technology in their POS systems can take

advantage of the many features of Touch N Go

biometric solution.

CONCLUSION

We have already discussed the various benefits

of biometric technology integration in POS

systems. Biometric fingerprint identification is a

cost-effective solution and has proven to be

both durable and reliable. It is a highly accurate

system that ensures only authorized individuals

will have access to POS terminals, networks

and applications. Within the first few months of

fingerprint integration in POS systems,

unauthorised manager overrides are stopped

and employee time and attendance fraud are

eliminated completely. Sophisticated users

clearly recognize the immense benefits of

investing in biometric technology. The return on

investment (ROI) is tangible in terms of

increased employee productivity, improved time

and attendance tracking and customer

satisfaction. Retailers can have a detailed

perspective of their business which allows them

to run their operations securely and efficiently.

POINT OF SALE BIOMETRICS INTEGRATION

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

AUTHOR

DANNY THAKKAR CEO & Co-Founder

Danny Thakkar is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bayometric,

one of the leading biometric solution providers in the

world. He has been in the Biometric Industry for 10+

years and has extensive experience across public and

private sector verticals. Currently, he is chief evangelist for

Touch N Go.

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REFERENCES 1. Biometrics Can Enhance POS Security – Retail Pro Blog

2. Tips on Cleaning up Employee Theft to Increase Company Revenues – Martin Investigative

Services, Inc.

3. How Biometrics is Changing the Retail Industry – APS Group

4. The Benefits of Integrating Biometrics with a POS Solution – M2SYS Blog