An employee of Hitachi demonstrates a cash machine using a biometric security system to read the user’s fingers during a press conference in Tokyo in 2005. Taking the idea of a cashless society to a new level, the Japanese company has said it will try out a way to let customers pay simply by scanning their finger.

The system uses biometric technology to identify the veins on a person’s finger, which can then serve as a credit card or ATM card.

Electronics maker Hitachi Ltd., which developed the technology with credit card maker JCB Co. Ltd., said the system was the ultimate in security.

"The growing use of credit cards is leading banking institutions to introduce reliable security based on biometrics to prevent fraud," Hitachi said in a statement.

Hitachi said it would launch an experiment in September involving 200 of its employees to see if it is commercially viable to introduce the system in shops, banks and other businesses.

Biometric technology is already used by Japanese banking giants such as Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui to identify clients as they conduct transactions or use ATMs.

In Hitachi’s new system, a customer would simply hold his or her finger in front of a machine which, without making contact, would scan an image that would be matched up with customers’ data in the system.

Via Physorg