Blog - No finger for me after all
No finger for me after all
Last year, most banks added to their ATMs a small scanner that checks your identity by scanning one of your fingers. Banks don't require to submit your finger data, the service is optional and only for increased security, and it doesn't replace the usual PIN which you still have to enter.
They didn't advertise it at all, but the post office (which also offers a banking service) also did the same to their ATMs, and for a while they even offered a free upgrade from the normal magnetic ATM card to the new IC card that's necessary for the biometric check. Comparatively, my bank (Mizuho) asks for a ¥1000 fee to do the same thing, unless you sign up to their "mileage" credit card that I don't want.
Being the curious type that I am, I upgraded my post office ATM card, and added my biometric data to it. So every time I did a withdrawal, I had to verify my identity by putting my finger on the scanner.
What's stupid though is that the finger scanning is actually optional, you can skip it and only enter your PIN, or simply use an old ATM without the finger scanner, and you can still withdraw. More stupid is that it makes logging in slower than usual (I guess that the ATM downloads your biometric data from somewhere), and also the scanning fails about half of the time.
The only real advantage to doing the scanning is that it does allow you to withdraw larger sums, but personally I only use my post office account as a backup where I keep a small amount to withdraw during the weekend (withdrawals being free at the post office, and they have ATMs in a lot of places). So in my case it was just a hassle, and I got tired of it and ended up getting them to delete my biometric data.
At least I keep the IC card which can also be used to store Edy electronic cash, but otherwise I didn't get anything out of this. :)
Posted on May 9, 2007 at 00:27 | Tweet
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