New Zealand is one of the first countries in the world to have biometric-capable payment terminals, through the new Verifone Victa range from Eftpos NZ. Here is what they are, how they work, and how we keep your data safe.
A biometric payment uses a physical trait, usually a face scan or a palm-vein pattern, to identify a customer and confirm a transaction. The customer enrols once, linking their face or palm to a card or account. After that they can be recognised by looking at a camera or holding their hand over a reader, with no card or phone needed.
Face recognition maps the geometry of a person's face. Palm-vein scanning reads the vein pattern beneath the skin of the hand. Both are contactless, which is why they suit an in-store setting. The trait is never stored as a photo. It is converted into an encrypted template that cannot be turned back into an image, and the original scan is discarded.
Exactly how it is built is up to each retailer or provider, but generally:
Kristy Gregory, Head of Merchant Sales and Strategic Partners at Eftpos NZ, describes it this way: "You register via the app, and it is 100 percent consumer choice and opt in. We take the credentials, whether it's your face or palm, and provide a unique individual token. That's how we identify you within the payment process. Your biometrics aren't kept. Once we've got that token, the original image is no longer required."
Behind the terminal, the biometric information and the card details sit in separate secure vaults, and the payment itself runs down the same rails as any other card transaction. What changes is how a customer is recognised, not the machinery that moves the money.
A handful of practical uses are the focus for New Zealand:
Age verification is likely to be the first of these to appear in practice. It applies anywhere age needs checking, including liquor stores, supermarkets, hospitality venues, pharmacies, and telecommunications retailers. For a busy business it reduces the load on frontline staff and lowers the risk of human error.
Paying with a face or palm can be far easier, safer, and more independent than a PIN pad for customers who are blind or have low vision, people with limb differences, and older customers who find a keypad difficult. For those customers, authenticating a payment on their own terms, without handing a card to someone or reading a screen, is a real improvement to the everyday experience of paying.
Reducing fraud is one of the strongest reasons the payments industry is moving towards biometrics. A card can be stolen and a PIN guessed. A face or palm ties a transaction to the actual person in a way those methods cannot. This helps most with three types of fraud:
Consumer trust already points this way. In a study cited by Verifone, 75% of respondents believed biometrics are more secure than passwords.
The Biometric Processing Privacy Code 2025, issued by the Privacy Commissioner in July 2025 under the Privacy Act 2020, sets specific rules for any organisation that collects and uses biometric information. Among other things, it requires clear notice to customers, limits using the data for anything beyond its original purpose, and sets conditions on sending biometric data overseas.
The way the technology is built adds a second layer of reassurance. Participation is voluntary, and a customer has to actively choose to enrol and choose to use it each time. Nothing is scanned passively. The terminal does not retain biometric data after the transaction and Verifone does not keep the scans used during the registration process. Systems also use liveness detection, which tells a real person apart from a photo, a mask, or a video.
None of this is as unfamiliar as it first sounds. "When you log onto your phone, you're often using biometrics to activate it," Gregory says. "At the point of sale it's not really any different." We already trust retailers to keep our card details on file for online checkout, and the move away from passwords and PINs is well under way. Biometric payment at the counter is the same shift, in a new place.
On security, Eftpos NZ was the first payments provider to register PCI 7 devices with Payments NZ, and the platform operates at PCI DSS Level 1, the highest level of payment security certification, with point-to-point encryption.
There is no set timeframe, and no plan to switch biometrics on across every terminal at once. It will be retailer-led. Each business decides whether and when to use it, with its preferred provider, in a way that suits its operations and customers. Interest from merchants has been brisk. "We have over 70,000 merchants, and some of the biggest retailers have already reached out," Gregory says. Eftpos NZ is now working with third-party loyalty and age-verification providers to assemble the payment side.
New Zealand adopted EFTPOS early and made it the default way to pay, then did the same with contactless, and then Android terminals. Biometrics is the next step in that pattern, and Eftpos NZ is bringing it to market with the hardware, the infrastructure, and the industry relationships already in place.
"We've decided to do this because we want to take that point of payment and make it frictionless," Gregory says. "We introduced contactless, we were the first to do so in the country, and look how much that sped up the transaction."
The emphasis, she says, is on choice. "We see it as an option. We're not forcing consumers to enrol, and we're not forcing retailers to use the functionality."
Will it be mandatory to use my face or palm to pay?
No. Biometric payment is opt-in for both the shop and the shopper. A retailer decides whether to offer it, and you decide whether to use it. Cards, contactless, and cash all keep working exactly as they do now, and physical ID stays valid for age checks. This is another way to pay, not a replacement for the ones you already have.
Can the devices be used to track people?
No. A Victa terminal reads a face or palm only at the checkout, at the moment a customer chooses to pay that way. It is not a camera watching the shop floor, nothing is scanned passively, and the terminal does not keep biometric data after the transaction. New Zealand's Biometric Processing Privacy Code makes it unlawful to reuse biometric data for a different purpose such as tracking or profiling.
Could someone fool it with a photo or a mask?
These systems are designed to tell a live person apart from a photo, a video, or a mask. Palm-vein technology is harder still to fake, because it reads the vein pattern beneath the skin.
What about identical twins?
The technology is designed to distinguish individuals, not just match a rough likeness, and palm-vein patterns differ even between identical twins. Enrolment also links your biometrics to your own card or account, so a payment is tied to you specifically.
What if my face changes, through surgery, an accident, or just getting older?
You can re-enrol if your appearance changes. And because biometrics is only ever one option, you always have your card, phone, or cash to fall back on. You are never locked out of paying.