Credit card company Mastercard has announced that it will accept selfies and fingerprints instead of passwords for online payment. The company found that 92% of the respondents to a trial for the new system preferred it to the old methods. The trial was conducted in the United States and Netherlands. Mastercard revealed its new strategy at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, the BBC reported.

The new system requires users to download an app on to their computer, smartphone or tablet. When they reach the authentication stage of an online purchase, instead of typing in the usual password, they will be told to look into the camera or use the phone’s fingerprint sensor. To prevent frauds by someone just holding up a photo, the user will have to blink to prove they are really there. To begin with, the app will only be available for users from UK, US, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

While security experts have some reservations on whether the system is foolproof, Mastercard insists that these along with its other mechanisms will be able to prevent or at least detect suspicious behaviour. The key learning from its trials has been that “people hate passwords” and commonly end up using breakable ones such as “123456”, the company said. Biometric tests like this one are employed by several other major companies such as Apple, alibaba.com and even ATMs in Japanese banks.