Samsung and Mastercard have announced that they're working together on a credit card that authenticates your payment using a fingerprint scanner directly on the card. 

What that means is that there's limited physical contact with POS chip-and-pin systems where you'd normally have to input your four-digit PIN. 

Instead of inputting your PIN, you'd simply scan your finger or thumb over the reader and that acts as your verification that it is - indeed - the owner of the card attempting to make the purchase. 

The biometric cards will use a new security chipset developed by Samsung's System LSI Business that integrates a number of discrete chips into the card. 

These cards can be used at any Mastercard chip terminal or any POS terminal. 

Samsung has announced that it will roll out this technology first in its home country of South Korea, where it plans to launch a biometric version of its Samsung Card later in 2021. 

In the end, it seems the aim is to make all transactions as contact-less as possible, making secure card payments as convenient as contactless ones which often don't require authentication.