Facial recognition payments firm FacePOS joins Central Bank of Ireland’s Innovation Sandbox Programme

Irish company FacePOS is pioneering the development of a point-of-sale instant payment system that uses AI-enabled facial recognition software to eliminate fraud and reduce costs for consumers and financial institutions.

Described as the “holy grail of payment systems”, FacePOS has been accepted into the Central Bank of Ireland’s Sandbox Programme for Innovation in Payments – an initiative set up by the banking authority to promote and accelerate solutions that deliver safer and faster payments for households and businesses.

FacePOS is an instant, pay-by-account (payBAC) payment system at point of sale. Positioned as an alternative to Visa and Mastercard, the revolutionary new software delivers instant payments direct from consumer accounts to merchant accounts without need of a card.

The company was founded by CEO James Hannigan — originally from Tallaght but now based in Sligo — who began his career in on-course bookmaking before moving into retail technology. FacePOS CFO Paddy Bolger was previously CFO of cybersecurity company CWSI.

FacePOS AI-enabled facial recognition technology uses liveness detection, which requires users to blink and smile to verify transactions. The software also has built-in proximity verification and confirmation of payee controls as additional security measures.

The technology eliminates the need for multiple intermediaries involved in card payments, which in turn reduces the cost to banks and consumers from fraud and errors.

The only interoperable instant POS payment solution in Europe, FacePOS is recognised by the European Payments Council, European Third Party Payments Association and the Central Bank of Ireland for instant payments at point of interaction (IP@POI).

FacePOS is currently fundraising and has been accepted onto Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) initiative.

The company employs a global team of 30 developers and sales people. It has strong support from FinTech Ireland. Later this year, FacePOS is planning to launch a round of fundraising to support regulatory compliance, legal and operational scaling, and its ambitious international expansion plans.

CEO James Hannigan and CFO Paddy Bolger attended the first CBI Innovation Sandbox event which took place at DogPatch Labs in Dublin on January 29. All nine selected companies came together at the innovation hub to introduce their products, services, and visions for transforming payments.

It followed the Asian Financial Forum on January 26 in Hong Kong where FacePOS was invited to take part in a closed roundtable discussion hosted by the Hong Kong government’s Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES), an initiative aimed at enticing innovative companies to set up and scale their operations in the region.

Bringing together representatives of financial institutions, regulators, policymakers and industry leaders, the roundtable provided FacePOS with access to key decision-makers from OASES who pitched Hong Kong as a future regional base offering strategic access to the Chinese market.

FacePOS CEO James Hannigan said: “We are very excited to introduce FacePOS – which has been hailed as the ‘holy grail of pay-by-account instant payment systems’. It delivers instant payments from consumer accounts to merchant accounts using AI-enabled facial recognition technology. Along with a range of other high-tech security measures, this effectively eliminates fraud typically associated with card-based payment systems and reduces costs for consumers and financial institutions.

“The next 12 months promises to be a period of accelerated growth for the company – aided in part by our acceptance into the Central Bank of Ireland’s Innovation Sandbox Programme for Innovation in Payments. Indeed, our place in the initiative is already paying dividends as we recently partnered with Payemoji, our CBI Sandbox colleagues, to provide payment services. 

“We also recently attended the Asian Financial Forum where we heard pitches from officials about the strategic benefits of setting up an Asian hub in Hong Kong. We look forward to more exciting developments in the coming months as we continue our fundraising, engaging with the CBI Sandbox cohort, and working with Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Up initiative.”

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