MasterCard trialling new technology to authorise payments with selfies AT last, a company has found a way to apply monetary value to arguably society most worthless trend the selfie. MasterCard is trialling innovative new technology that allows shoppers to authorise a payment with a selfie instead of a password or a signature. If youve been living under a rock for the past decade, a selfie is a self-taken photo, normally with a phone. MasterCard president of enterprise security solutions Ajay Bhalla called it the next wave of technology that will change the consumer experience for shopping digitally. It all part of our role in making commerce available anywhere, any time, on any digital device, he said. A pilot program is currently being undertaken at a credit union in America, and another in the Netherlands. The new selfie payment technology will be implemented in MasterCard Identity Check app. When a customer purchases a product from an online merchant that requires a verified identity, the customer mobile phone will receive a push notification, which will open the app and ask to take a selfie. Mr Bhalla called it a seamless, smooth experience. A neat feature will prevent criminals from rorting the system by simply holding up the person picture. While the customer poses for the selfie, they will be required to blink to show the facial recognition scan software that they are a real person. The new selfie technology will also remove the necessity of remembering a password, which can become an issue in a society dependent on multiple passwords. A survey of about 10,000 MasterCard customers found one-third of customers had cancelled an online transaction because they couldnt remember their password. MasterCard is also looking at voice or heartbeat recognition as payment options in the future.