Visa and consumer authentication service PopID will collaborate on launching facial verification payment acceptance in the Middle East region.
US-headquartered PopID has also signed an agreement with Dubai Holding to establish a joint venture that will support the roll-out of facial biometric payment solution PopPay in Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa regions.
“Facial biometric payments are at the forefront of payments innovation, providing cardholders a fast, seamless and most importantly, secure way to authenticate and make a payment,” said Akshay Chopra, Head of Visa CEMEA Innovation & Design.
“From across our partner network, we’ve seen heightened interest in co-creating new facial and biometric payments moments. Through this partnership with PopPay, we are keen to help clients roll out biometric payment capabilities faster and with more success.”
Costa Coffee, MMI and grocery chain Geant will be the first to welcome PopPay. Cove Beach at Caesars Palace Dubai and Coca-Cola Arena Dubai, which sit in Dubai Holding’s portfolio, will also integrate PopPay.
During the initial phase of the partnership, Dubai Holding will deploy PopPay at some of its assets across its destinations and attractions, which will be followed by the adoption of the payment technology across Dubai Holding’s wider ecosystem and through partners across CEE and Mena region.
Under the alliance with Visa, issuing banks will be invited to join the platform and give their customers the ability to link their facial biometrics to their debit or credit cards to make payments; and acquiring banks will be offered the opportunity to distribute PopID’s proprietary face pay terminals to brick and mortar businesses.
“We expect face pay to become the global standard for payments, and we are determined to make PopPay the consumer brand that is used and trusted by people all over the world,” said John Miller, CEO of PopID.
Throughout 2022, the platform will look to further scale across the Middle East region by partnering with key merchants to provide this leading payments technology to consumers. This second international deployment follows the launch of PopPay Japan through a joint venture with a subsidiary of SoftBank Corp.
