Bi-Lo Says Biometric Authentication Cut Check Fraud 60%

Bi-Lo LLC, a supermarket chain based in Mauldin, S.C., has announced a biometric-based authentication system has cut its payroll-check fraud losses by 60% since it was installed last fall. The grocer says almost 40,000 customers are now signed up for the system, called Paycheck Secure, and that it has done nearly 100,000 check transactions with an aggregate value of $21 million through the network since it went live in 176 stores last November. The stores on the system, which represent slightly more than half of the units in the Bi-Lo chain, are in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. “Our expectations have been met and exceeded,” James Wiles, loss-prevention manager for Bi-Lo, said in a statement about the system. Paycheck Secure is a product of Herndon, Va.-based BioPay LLC, which specializes in payroll- and in-lane check-cashing and check-conversion systems secured by scans of customers' fingerprints. The market for biometric authentication of electronic transactions has heated up in recent days. In addition to the Bi-Lo announcement, San Francisco-based Pay By Touch, a BioPay competitor, announced last week it had acquired the merchant-acquiring arm of InterCept Inc., Norcross, Georgia, for $30.5 million, including $12 million in cash. Days earlier, Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., Charleston, S.C., had said it would begin testing Pay By Touch's system at four of its stores this summer in advance of a planned rollout to most of its 116 stores. And a month ago Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Information Architects Corp., which specializes in employee screening, announced it was entering the market with the acquisition of a patent covering aspects of fingerprint authentication.