OREANDA-NEWS. Sberbank has been presented with an Innovation Time 2015 award for its Ladoshki project, which came first in the Social Innovation of the Year category.

The Ladoshki service is based on biometric payment technology for paying for food with your palm. To pay for the food all you have to do is enter the sum and touch the palm of your hand to the sensor. The sensor creates an individual picture of the capillaries on your palm and a special optical system integrated in the sensor identifies the payer, after which the price is automatically withdrawn from their account.

The service was unveiled in April this year. Currently it operates in schools in the Moscow and Voronezh Regions, and the Volga area.

In December 2015, Sberbank became the first bank in the world to allow clients to "link" their bank cards to their palms. When paying by palm, money is automatically debited from the card account commission-free.

Parents can top up their children's accounts using the Sberbank Online on a mobile device or personal computer and by depositing cash using cash machines and terminals.

"Many are saying that bank cards are a thing of the past and soon people will begin paying for things using their smartphones. However, a smartphone can run out of batteries, break or be lost," commented Yana Pavlova, Director of Sberbank's Customer Relations Department. "We are the first in the world to provide the option of tying a bank card to a person's palm, and parents are actively signing up for this service. This is one of those cases of innovating in order to bring value to clients and the bank instead of innovation for the sake of innovation."