Mastercard is coming up with credit cards that have fingerprint scanners

Mastercard is coming up with new new credit cards that will house a fingerprint scanner to increase security for the consumer and shield him against possible hacks.

(Mastercard)

Mastercard is coming up with credit cards that have fingerprint scanners built into the card, the Verge reported.

The card is not bigger or thicker in size and lets users authorise their payments with a touch, rather than using a PIN or signature.

The company says the card works with all existing chip-and-PIN readers (no magnetic stripe-only terminals), and is currently being tried out in South Africa. Additional trials are planned for Europe and the Asia-Pacific region in coming months, with a "full roll out expected later this year."

Interestingly, such a product becomes important for India as the country is trying to introduce newer ways of digital payments. India also saw nearly 19 banks affected in an ATM card attack in November last year. One server hack led to infection of 3.2 million cards across 90 ATMs.

The breach was thought to have been caused by malware introduced in the Hitachi Payment Services system. Malware is defined as software specifically designed to intrude into computer systems.