Frankfurt - For those who frequently arrive at the supermarket check-out only to find they have left their wallets at home, help is at hand.
A new system that scans customers' fingerprints and deducts the grocery bill from their bank accounts has taken supermarkets in southwestern Germany by storm and is being picked up by hardware stores, school canteens and even the country's ubiquitous beer gardens.
"Almost a quarter of our customers pay with their fingers," staff at the headquarters of the Edeka supermaket chain, which became the first retail business in Germany to use the new system, told AFP.
Edeka has installed the fingerprint payment system at 70 of its outlets and say about 200 others will soon follow because it has proven a hit with clients.
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'Almost two-thirds of the people who use the fingerprint system are 40 and older' "At first we thought that only the young who really keep up with the latest technology would be interested, but we were wrong," said Stefan Sewoester from IT Werke, one of the pioneers of fingerprint payment software in Germany.
"Almost two-thirds of the people who use the fingerprint system are 40 and older."
IT Werke has furbished around 150 shops, canteens and pubs with fingerprint scanning machines at a cost of €2 000 (about R20 000) each.
To sign up for the service, customers must have their fingerprints taken and leave their addresses and banking details with the shop, who can then charge purchases directly to the client's bank account.
"It is a godsend for elderly clients because they do not have to remember their pin-code to pay with their bank cards, or to scratch around for their glasses or cash," Sewoester said.
Fingerprint data profiling has long been used for to control access Georg Meisberger from Globus Warehouse, a hypermarket in St Wendel near the French border, said he had "customers well over 70 using the system".
The stores believe that it saves more than time in the check-out line because it also cuts out the hidden costs of accepting electronic cash card payments.
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