Hotel Allowing Guests to Pay with Fingerprints

The Ushuaia Ibiza Beach Hotel will now allow registered guests to pay for items around the hotel with nothing more than their fingers. This new system is being deployed throughout the hotel’s bars, restaurants, club area and elsewhere so users can get access to a number of services such as event bookings, food and beverage and every other service provided by the hotel.

The technology comes from a Spanish provider called Pay-Touch and is essentially a biometric scanner which checks and matches the user’s fingerprint against a pre-registered and verified image. Last year the hotel armed their guests with wristbands with RFID tags so they could check-in automatically and share content on Facebook. The idea is that guests can head out for an evening without having to take along any cash. To help promote the system, registered users will be given priority access to the hotel’s events. The hotel would like guests to register ahead of time online and log their details and prints at booths once they arrive. The company says the technology is fully compliant with PCI-DSS security standards and also allows users to register more than one payment card to be credited with each purchase.