Eftpos NZ has launched the hardware needed for facial and palm recognition, but biometric payment infrastructure is still being implemented.
Customers can't currently walk into a store and pay simply by presenting their face or palm, but it was expected to be available fairly soon.
It would mean paying without a physical card, phone, loyalty card or any identity documents.
The company said it had always been a market leader and palm-vein or facial recognition technology were just more examples of this.
"We want to take that point of payment and make it frictionless. We introduced contactless [payments], we were the first to do so in the country and how much has that sped up the transaction?" Kristy Gregory told BNZ Business Breakfast.
'We're not forcing anyone to take this up'
Using your palm or face to pay will be voluntary. Consumers register via an app which will record their credentials and create a unique individual token to identify the payer.
Eftpos NZ said the biometrics would not be stored anywhere.
"Once we've got that unique token, the original image is no longer required," Gregory said.
"We're not forcing anyone to take this up. We're not forcing consumers to enrol, we're not forcing retailers to use the functionality. What we're trying to do is make that point of sale experience more personalised,' she said.
It would be able to bundle age verification and loyalty programme information together too, so that it would all be processed by one transaction.
When will it start?
The company said it serves more than 90,000 New Zealand businesses, processing approximately 700 million transactions each year.
No firm date has been given for consumer biometric payments to begin, but Eftpos NZ said interest was high from retailers and it does not think privacy concerns would deter consumers.
"Today when you go online you provide all this information. When you log on to your phone you often are using biometrics to activate it today, so at the point of sale it's not really any different."
"While it seems a little bit scary, I think Kiwis love new technology and I think there's lots of people who will pick up this option", she said.
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