Biometrics research briefs: banking and mobile biometrics

Biometrics will be used instead of passwords for financial services as soon as 2019, says data vendor GlobalData.

The firm said 67 percent of global consumers would be happy to use some form of biometric to secure their payment details. This was in line with statistics that GlobalData shared at Money 20/20, according to which adoption rates of biometric authentication are as high as 93 percent among banking customers if rolled out properly.

A driven rationale for the switchover to biometrics is consumer fraud. GlobalData’s 2018 Consumer Payments Insight Survey noted that 16 percent of consumers have been victims of payment fraud over the past four years worldwide. Not accounting for the reputational damage financial institutions suffer as a result, the research vendor posits that fraud costs the industry billions of dollars every year.

“Of those consumers who have been subject to fraud, nine percent closed their accounts and switched to another provider,” said GlobalData Senior Wealth Management Analyst Heike van den Hoevel. “Given the costs involved in acquiring and retaining customers, this is a significant proportion. Yet, the level of concern from financial services providers remains low.”

The highest risk of fraud and reputational damage is in wealth management and the private banking space where the highest-value transactions happen.

“Banks often worry about the balancing act of extra security and maximizing convenience, but clearly there are solutions such as biometric security that can address both. It’s time to act, or be left behind,” said van den Hoevel.

Mobile Biometrics

ResearchAndMarkets.com projects that the global mobile biometric market will reach US$47.85 billion by 2023. The market is valued at US$11.64 billion today.

The increase in market value will be traced to the increased value of mobile transactions, which is expected to reach US$2.8 trillion by 2020 in the United States.

ResearchAndMarkets.com states that mobile biometrics has gained traction due to its applications in various industry verticals. The technology has been leveraged to facilitate online transactions, online shopping, authentication, and many other services. Mobile biometrics has also gained traction due to technological innovations and the need to secure online consumer data and activities. As well government use, such as the Indian governments’ Aadhaar initiative which has registered more than 1.18 billion residents, has integrated the use of biometrics across the operations of several industry verticals, further broadening the scope of the mobile biometrics market.

Key companies within the mobile transaction space include: Apple Inc., M2SYS Technology, 3M Cogent Inc. (Gemalto NV), NEC Corporation, Fujitsu Ltd., Honeywell International PLC, Nuance Communications Inc., ImageWare Systems Inc., Precise Biometrics AB, Applied Recognition Inc., VoiceVault Inc., Bio-key International Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Qualcomm Technologies Inc.

Article Topics

banking  |  biometrics  |  biometrics research  |  mobile biometrics