In the near future, when you order an iced Americano at a coffee shop, you will be able to just peer into a lens to pay. In the not-so-distant future you may not even have to carry cash or cards anywhere once the pattern of your iris has been registered at a bank and that information shared with the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearing Institute. Are you an online shopper? No problem: Just look into your computer’s camera and your payment will be debited from your bank account.

Whether this sounds like another step on the way to domination by Big Brother or a liberating technology, it may be on the way. Irience, a start-up company specializing in eye-recognition security systems, demonstrated such a system at a forum Thursday on the subject of biological ID systems in the financial industry. The meeting was organized by the Bank of Korea and the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearing Institute.