Handwave provides a biometric payment platform that uses a palm scanner to capture 3D geometry and vein patterns for secure, card‑free transactions. The device integrates with existing POS/ECR systems via a plug‑and‑play module and RESTful API, enabling payment, loyalty enrollment, and age verification in under four seconds. On‑device AI performs real‑time liveness detection and encrypted token transmission for PCI‑DSS compliance.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Retail point‑of‑sale environments rely on cards, mobile wallets, or manual ID checks, which introduce friction, increase transaction time, and expose merchants to fraud and compliance risks. Age‑restricted sales and loyalty enrollment further complicate the checkout flow, often requiring separate systems and operator intervention. These inefficiencies raise operational costs and diminish the customer experience.
Solution
Handwave delivers a biometric payment platform that captures the three‑dimensional geometry and subdermal vein pattern of a shopper’s palm, combined with real‑time liveness detection, to authenticate and authorize transactions. The handheld scanner connects via a plug‑and‑play module to existing POS or electronic cash register (ECR) hardware, enabling payment, loyalty enrollment, and age verification in a single wave. Proprietary AI models evaluate the biometric data on‑device and transmit encrypted verification tokens to a cloud service for settlement and audit logging. The solution’s standardized RESTful API integrates with merchant loyalty engines and age‑restriction rule sets, allowing instant benefit activation and compliance checks without manual input. By eliminating cards and phones, the system reduces transaction latency to under four seconds while delivering multi‑factor security that exceeds facial or fingerprint methods.
Target Audience
The primary customers are brick‑and‑mortar retailers—such as supermarkets, convenience stores, and specialty shops—that require fast, secure checkout, integrated loyalty, and age‑restricted sales compliance. Secondary users include POS solution providers and franchise operators seeking a unified biometric authentication layer.
Features
- Dual‑modal palm scanner that records surface geometry and near‑infrared vein patterns, plus liveness detection to prevent spoofing
- PCI‑DSS and GDPR‑compliant encryption pipeline with tokenized payment credentials sent to acquiring banks
- RESTful API and SDKs for seamless integration with POS/ECR terminals, loyalty platforms, and age‑restriction rule engines
- Real‑time AI inference on the device for sub‑second authentication and transaction approval
- Built‑in age verification module that cross‑references biometric age estimation with merchant policies, removing the need for physical ID checks
- Automatic loyalty enrollment and reward triggering triggered by successful biometric authentication
- Cloud‑hosted analytics dashboard for fraud monitoring, transaction reporting, and device health telemetry
- Over‑the‑air firmware updates and remote diagnostics to maintain security posture without on‑site service calls