Pay your bills with a finger

No need to worry about forgetting your credit card or cash when going off to a shopping spree; just make sure to bring your fingers with you!
According to an article on CNN Let your fingers do the paying by Matthew Boyle, in the near future big retails stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Costco are planning to install a paying system called “electronic wallets”; which is an idea of swiping your finger on a scanner at a register to pay for groceries.
This is how the ‘magic finger’ biometric system works. The customer who wants this service goes to a kiosk store and submits information on their checking account, phone number, and credit card information. This process enables them to register their fingerprint in the system, so the next time they go to the register all they have to do it scan their finger, enter their telephone number, and choose to either pay with credit, debit or checking.
This new and advanced biometric system brings benefits to both the customer and the retailers. For the customers, it provides a 70% speedier check out, and most importantly it increases security and the possibility of avoiding fraud.
There is even a bigger advantage for retailers. Every year the retailers pay an immense amount of transaction fee for credit and debit card payments hurting their profits (retailers have even filed lawsuits against Visa and Master Card). If the retailers install this new technology, they can avoid transaction fees. Research’s Scott Langdoc estimates “switching from credit cards to checking accounts could shave the net cost of a transaction by anywhere from 40 to 70 cents. That’s big money”. This biometric system just may be the savor to grocery stores which has low margins set.

Though as we learned in Economics class, every choice must and always has an opportunity cost. One of the opportunity cost mentioned in the article if this system is installed is the privacy issue, or simply customers may not even bother to go install their fingerprints because it is time consuming.

Do you think it is a good idea to install this biometric system where you can shop with your finger? Can you think of any other opportunity cost if this system is installed? Would you apply for this service to make your shopping easier?