Finger vein biometrics may just be the unsung hero of the industry. No one talks about it much, they just skip right to fingerprint or palm geometry. But veins offer a very ideal biometric to identify with, and the technology to detect them is appearing in more places in Japan than ever.

For starters, HitachiSoft has developed the industry’s smallest finger vein authentication system, saying it’s 1/3 of the usual size of other devices. Read the press release.

In another annoucement, Hitachi-Omron Terminal Solutions will soon have available an ATM with finger vein identification. Most likely this incorporates the system they released above (the picture in the link does appear to be similar.)
Read the announcement.

Another Japanese bank has already begun to use ATMs equipped with such a system. This one reads vein patterns of palms. Read about Suruga bank’s palm scanners.

This month, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi should be installing the vein pattern recognition ATMs at 250 of its branches. Read the press release here.