Bold Commerce Teams With Wink to Offer Biometric Checkout

eCommerce company Bold Commerce has introduced its first biometric checkout offering.

Powered by Wink, the company’s Bold Checkout lets retailers offer their customers the chance to use their faces and voices to prefill the information needed to complete a purchase, Bold Commerce announced Thursday (Jan. 25).

“Retailers are increasingly making their way into the biometrics space, and making it easy for them to integrate biometrics into the checkout experience so shoppers can quickly make a purchase using only their face,” Bold Commerce CEO Peter Karpas said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

“We’re taking the tailored checkout experience that Bold has long powered a step further with Bold Checkout with Wink to drive conversion, customer loyalty and average order value.”

The release argues that while many consumers use biometrics to make purchases, current capabilities are limited to certain devices and to the payment portion of checkout. With shoppers expecting a faster checkout, depending on passwords for shopper accounts adds friction and vulnerability to the process, Bold Commerce said.

“Current device-based biometric offerings are often bypassed by PIN codes, do not adhere to shoppers’ preferences of using alternate payment methods, and aren’t typically available to shoppers on every channel where they’re making a purchase,” the release said.

According to the release, retailers can integrate the technology into any mobile, desktop or in-store shopping experience. Bold Commerce said it now includes biometrics into every part of checkout, eliminating passwords and PINs, so shoppers can go from cart to purchase “using only their face.”

The launch comes amid increased demand for biometric shopping solutions among American consumers. PYMNTS Intelligence has found that nearly half of U.S. online shoppers use biometrics, with around 15% saying they are interested in doing so in the future.

“The study found that 46% of biometrics users consider faster checkout an important reason for choosing this type of authentication,” PYMMNTS wrote earlier this month, citing data from the report “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Biometric Authentication in the Age of Mobile.”

“This means quick access and an agile payment process that can be achieved, for instance, through facial recognition.”

Among the other companies making efforts in this realm is Fortress Payments, which last month announced a new payments suite featuring a biometric checkout solution.

“People use a selfie to unlock their phones multiple times a day, making a payment should be no different,” CEO Alessandro Chiarini said at the time.