Japan: Bank offers emergency loans via palm scans

Customers will be able to access loans after major disasters, such as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, without needing bank cards or documents

Customers at one Japanese bank will soon be able to obtain emergency loans by scanning the palms of their hands at cash machines, it's reported.

The service, being launched by the Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank, based in western Japan, will only become available following major natural disasters, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reports. Customers will be able to get a loan of up to two million yen ($17,000; £11,000) through cash machines fitted with palm-vein verification technology, the report says. The loans will be available for one month from the day after a disaster, but only in six prefectures where the bank has its branches.

The new scheme will kick in after an earthquake measuring at least a "lower six" on the seven-level Japanese seismic intensity scale, a disaster triggered by torrential rain or a volcanic eruption.

The bank says it developed the idea after the country's devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami, when many survivors couldn't borrow money because they had lost their identification documents. In 2012, it launched a scheme allowing clients to withdraw cash from their own accounts by scanning their palms, a service which has more than 300,000 registered users.

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