Biometrics, which is being driven by technological advances and economies of scale, has become a mainstream activity in the financial services industry and payments systems, according to the global financial services industry association Mobey Forum.
The Mobey Forum's Biometrics Workgroup's report, "Biometrics in Payments: Touching Convenience," noted that over the last two decades, the technology has progressively established its credibility in the financial services market.
"The vast majority of banks intend to implement biometrics in the relatively near future, just as the number of handset manufacturers planning to integrate biometric capabilities into their devices rises," the report stated.
For financial institutions and payments service providers, security is a minimum requirement, but convenience wins over consumers; they will not adopt security measures that are inconvenient, the report said. In addition, survey results showed prevailing consumer attitudes toward biometrics, while often fueled by Apple's cool factor, appeared generally positive at this point even across a range of age groups.
While biometrics has been around for many years, its applicability as a method of identification, authentication and authorization in mobile banking and payments helped it gain momentum, the report revealed. It also noted biometrics offers considerable benefits, especially in regard to user experience and potentially other areas of financial services, such as employee screening, online dealing transactions and insurance.
The report also found past apprehensions about biometrics, such as accuracy and price, are no longer pressing issues. Other concerns such as security, however, still present roadblocks. The paper emphasized that for biometrics to succeed, solutions must work with secure technologies in the areas of storage and processing.
In general, biometrics use cases for financial applications fall roughly into two categories: Identification and verification. While biometric identification involves a biometric search of many records, verification involves a comparison of a live sample or samples to a single, securely stored record.
Biometric identification is also helpful during a member onboarding or employee screening process in that it prevents the entry of duplicate identity records into a database, the report said. It also detects incorrect or outdated identity data in a database, intentional misrepresentation of identity information and the presence of an individual on a watch list.
Biometric verification ensures that a user attempting to access a service is the same user who originally enrolled. Applications include user login, account management, payment authorization and document signing.
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Roy Urrico
Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).
