rewrite this title Clover Selects Wink to Offer Biometric-Powered Payments – Finovate

Clover is partnering with Wink to embed biometric identity directly into the payment flow across Clover’s point-of-sale ecosystem.

The integration enables identity-based payments using facial, palm, and voice recognition and will support transactions, loyalty enrollment, and age verification without passwords, physical cards, or additional hardware.

The partnership treats identity as a core layer of the transaction and aims to deliver faster checkout, reduced fraud, and simpler operations for merchants.

Fiserv-owned Clover, a company that provides Android-powered point-of-sale tools, announced it is partnering with biometric identity and payments platform Wink to offer a new way to pay.

Clover will integrate Wink’s biometric identity technology into its existing platform, enabling identity-based payments designed to improve security and streamline checkout for both merchants and customers.

Texas-based Wink, a FinovateSpring 2023 Best of Show winner, provides a multi-factor biometric platform that combines facial, palm, voice, and device recognition to authenticate customer identities across in-store, mobile, and online transactions—without relying on passwords, physical cards, or additional hardware.

The integration brings together Clover’s payment and loyalty tools with Wink’s biometric authentication capabilities, allowing consumers to complete transactions, enroll in loyalty programs, and verify age-restricted purchases using biometric authentication. All transactions are processed through Wink’s PCI Level 1 and SOC 2–compliant payment gateway.

“The future of commerce is the unification of payment and identity,” said Fiserv SVP and Global Chief Product Officer of Merchant Solutions Sanjay Saraf. “By embedding Wink’s leading biometric security and intelligence directly into the Clover platform, we’re making cutting-edge technology simple, secure, and accessible for Main Street SMB businesses, helping them to deliver exceptional experiences and unlock new opportunities for growth.”

While contactless payments tools became less exciting after COVID, the heart of this collaboration is around a more central aspect of payments: identity. By integrating Wink’s tools, Clover is bringing identity into the core layer of the transaction, rather than a separate step handled through passwords, cards, or manual checks. For merchants, this could mean faster throughput, lower fraud, and fewer operational touchpoints.

Clover was originally founded in 2010 to help small businesses accept payments. Today, the company serves as a one-stop shop for multiple payment needs. In addition to offering a range of payment acceptance terminals, Clover also has software to help businesses with online orders, accounting, loyalty programs, staff management, inventory, and more.

Clover was acquired in 2012 by First Data, which was acquired by Fiserv in 2019.

“Wink’s strategic integration with Clover will bring unparalleled security, speed, and intelligence to every transaction across a large ecosystem of merchants, app developers, and partners,” said Deepak Jain, Founder and CEO of Wink. “We are excited to work closely with Fiserv to bring to market many advanced use cases of identity-driven payments that will define the future of connected commerce at scale across retail, hospitality, venues, and stadiums.”

Clover will make the biometric capabilities available across all of its point-of-sale devices, including Station Duo, Mini, Flex, and Clover Kiosk, and will not require additional hardware changes. The new biometric technology will be available to QSRs, sports venues, and retailers, in a continuous rollout throughout 2026.

Photo by Angela Roma

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