Study finds most banking customers want advanced authentication methods

Iovation partnered with global research and advisory firm Aite Group to release a new study titled “Moving Beyond the Password: Consumers’ Views on Authentication”, which revealed that 85 percent of respondents want to replace passwords with advanced authentication methods.

The survey polled nearly 1,100 consumers across four generations who use online and/or mobile banking platforms — including millennials (35 percent), Gen X’ers (26 percent), Baby Boomers (32 percent) and seniors (7 percent) — to better understand their attitudes toward various authentication mechanisms used today.

Due to a range of comfort levels and willingness to learn new methods, different generations expressed varying preferences around the best methods to replace the high-risk password system.

The report found that 95 percent of millennials are open to using a different authentication method than passwords, while 82 percent of Gen X and Baby Boomer respondents also share the same sentiment.

Meanwhile, only 16 percent of seniors are very willing to learn new authentication methods, while 48 percent said that they are willing to try a different method.

The study found that millennials were the most receptive audience to a new authentication experience as millennial respondents perceived fingerprint biometrics (85 percent), eye biometrics (76 percent), and knowledge-based authentication questions (74 percent) to be the most effective identification methods.

Generation X (37 to 52 year olds) respondents cited fingerprint biometrics (75 percent), eye biometrics (70 percent), and knowledge-based authentication questions (66 percent) as their top choices for password replacement, the study found.

Next,, Baby Boomers believed fingerprint biometrics (76 percent), eye biometrics (67 percent) and facial recognition (59 percent) to be the leading authentication practices instead of the typical username/password combo.

Finally, seniors over the age of 71 were in favor of the fingerprint biometrics (68 percent), followed by facial recognition technology (53 percent), according to the study.

“What this survey makes clear is that online banking customers across generations remain extremely frustrated with passwords and if provided with more modern authentication alternatives like biometrics or facial recognition, they will eagerly embrace them,” said Michael Thelander, director of product management for iovation. “Consequently, a growing number of financial institutions are realizing that dynamic authentication technologies like iovation’s LaunchKey represent both a more secure, user-friendly experience to their customers.”

Article Topics

authentication  |  banking  |  biometrics  |  eye  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  survey