Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store chain located in the midwestern United States. If you have ever shopped there, they are definetely a hometown style store, the kind that makes you feel at home from the second you walk in the door. They are also one of the least technological chain of grocery stores in the US. Well, they were until recently.

Piggly Wiggly is the first chain to roll out biometric payment pads to their entire corporation. The idea behind the biometric pads is that you can link your fingerprint to either a checking account or credit card and when you are ready to pay for your groceries by simply pressing your thumb on the pad and away you go. Shoppers can also link their fingerprint to their "store loyalty cards" so they don't have to carry their cards anymore (don't get me started on how annoying and pointless those store loyalty cards are... I hope Safeway enjoys tracking Ehjeet MaDrawers' shopping habits.)

There are obviously some security concerns that the original article didn't address. Sure, the likelihood of someone stealing your fingerprint is next to null, but there is still a central database of credit card/checking account numbers that has to be maintained. There was no mention of who the maintainer was, but there is a high chance that it is either maintained by Pay By Touch (The company behind the product Piggy Wiggly is using), or the Automated Clearing House network, the payment transfer service used by Pay By Touch. The problem, as I see it, is that if the database is indeed maintained by Pay By Touch that leaves yet another company, with no public security record, with access to your financial information.

The security concerns don't seem to be stopping people from signing up for the service. 15-20% percent of Piggly Wiggly's noncash customers are now using Pay By Touch, only weeks after the rollout was completed. Apparently a good number of the early adopters are from a demographic that is considered to be afraid of technology: senior citizens. The explanation behind the willingness of seniors to switch is that a lot of the seniors were as concerned with offline (good ol' fashioned beat you over the head) theft as they were identity theft. The seniors said that they were thankful for a system that allowed them to leave their checks and credit cards at home.

Piggly Wiggly's employees were quick to adopt the system as well because it made it easier for them to grab a quick drink or bite to eat while on break without having to dig out their wallet. According to loyalty card reports, customers that have adopted Pay By Touch are getting through the line quicker and coming back more often.