The Belgium-Dutch outfit unveiled its technology at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in London, where it was one of 15 companies competing for £30,000 and the 'Disrupt Cup'.

Sign2Pay lets customers with any touch-enabled mobile device pay for online orders at participating merchants by entering their bank account number and scrawling their signature. Money is directly debited from customer accounts.

The firm says that its platform analyses over a thousand data points in a signature, making it more secure than traditional passwords and PINs. In fact, security is on a par with biometric systems but without the need for additional hardware.

At launch Sign2Pay can process payments from over 3700 European banks and is now asking merchants to sign on.

Nicolas Mertens, CEO, Sign2Pay, says: "Online debit payments have been plagued by inconvenient and cumbersome authentication methods such as challenge response systems and physical card readers. Allowing users to use their personal signature not only increases trust and speed, it also increases sales conversion rates for merchants.”

Also at TechCrunch Disrupt, a new Berlin-based digital banking service called Number26 launched in private beta. Like Simple and Moven in the US, Number26 is not actually a bank, working with a partner that looks after the money while the startup provides the front end.

Customers - initially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland - can sign up online in around five minutes, confirming their identity through a video call, before getting sent a MasterCard debit card. Like its US peers, Number26 is concentrating on offering a smooth, data-driven mobile experience, making it easy for customers to track and manage their money.