Facial Biometrics: Future of Payments in Financial Ecosystem

Imagine living in a society where you could purchase products and services without getting your wallet or phone out, where your card is not swiped or tapped. It is possible thanks to biometrics authentication. They offer a workable substitute for payment authentication for POS (point-of-sale) systems. Biometrics can verify your identity in place of a PIN or signature to validate your payment.

Biometric authentication is becoming a game-changer in the payment industry, offering a convenient and secure alternative to traditional authentication methods. From facial recognition to fingerprint authentication, discover how biometrics are shaping the future of payments.

What Is Biometrics?

Biometrics are physical characteristics that are specific to each individual. Examples of biometrics are:

• Face Recognition
• Fingerprint Scanning
• Iris Scanning
• Voice Recognition

Biometrics are already widely used in various industries, from unlocking devices to enhancing airport security.

For Example;

• We can enable face recognition or thumbprint identification to unlock our devices. 
• Travellers can pass through airport security checkpoints more quickly due to biometric systems that use their fingerprint or iris to verify their identity.
• Biometrics can be used to speed up, secure, and simplify consumers’ daily lives.  

Benefits of Biometrics in Payments

Biometrics authentication simplifies and secures daily transactions, improving the customer experience. The market for contactless biometrics is projected to grow significantly, reflecting its increasing popularity.

By 2026, researchers predict that the market for contactless biometrics technology will grow to $18.6 billion. According to KBV Research, this reflects a 19.1% compound annual growth rate for the projection period.

“Unlock your individuality. Biometrics reveal it.”

Pay with a Smile:

Pay with a Smile is an innovative payment solution introduced by Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) that leverages layered biometrics authentication to enhance security and improve the user experience.

It is based on G+D’s FIDO-compliant platforms and employs layered biometrics to identify a user before a transaction using facial recognition and additional elements, such as voice and fingerprint ID. By employing multiple layers of biometric verification, the system ensures that only authorized individuals can access and utilize the payment services. This approach enhances the effectiveness of biometric recognition and rejects attackers who try to mimic or copy biometrics.

The outcome is “much more secure than anything you can do with a PIN card,” claims Jukka Yliuntinen, Head of Digital Payments Solutions at G+D. According to him, a stronger emotional bond may be built with a brand by doing away with the paperwork and physical ID presentation required of old-style banking.

By leveraging the advancements in 3D cameras in smartphones and point-of-sale devices, the simple act of smiling can be translated into an animated representation of facial movements. This additional data significantly enhances the accuracy and reliability of the biometric verification process.

Concepts Behind Biometrics Authentication

SCA And Biometrics

Strong customer authentication (SCA) in financial services is most reliable when identity is confirmed using characteristics particular to each customer. While some organizations choose voice or fingerprint detection, others choose facial recognition. Each biometric technique has pros, cons, and favoured use cases.

Client Preference

During and after COVID, facial identification has become far more challenging, although it is still impossible to replicate the friction ridges in our fingertips. Furthermore, the technology used to create safe and precise fingerprint sensors is unmatched in the biometrics industry. 

A recent Mastercard and Oxford University study found that 77% of customers believe facial recognition is a secure biometric system, which increases to 93% when fingerprints are used.

Accuracy And Safety

Quick access to devices is made possible through fingerprint recognition, a safe authentication technique. High accuracy is provided by the unique fingerprint ridges’ encoded image, which cannot be duplicated. Meanwhile, the sensory chip can save our fingerprint information and prevent it from being sent to bank computers, offering excellent security.

One of the most common techniques of authentication is still facial recognition. Although its facial recognition technology is precise, security is a major concern. The fundamental issue with this method is how access is granted using deep fakes and pictures. 

Because each person’s iris patterns are distinct, iris and retinal authentication are extremely safe. However, user opposition and readability issues make this technology less useful.

Power of Biometric Sensors

There are numerous applications for biometric sensors. The adoption of biometrics significantly improves the customer experience across payments and IDs. 

Due to the growth of digital-first and open banking, consumers can now make remote and independent payments using biometrics. Thanks to quick and efficient compliance and enrollment processes, customers can transact without being physically present.

All healthcare facilities implement a patient-centric strategy, including improved information access, storage, and transmission security. The user experience is significantly improved when fingerprint biometrics are used for healthcare identification, as is consumer confidence in the company and data storage efficiency.

Learn More Digital Healthcare: the future

Safe Banking With Minimal Hassle

Biometric smart cards eliminate the need for a password because you are the password. 

When a user requests access or completes a transaction, biometric smart cards make the banking ecosystem more secure, and fingerprints reduce the possibility that deep fakes may be exploited to gain unauthorized access to information. 

Additionally, it eliminates forgotten PINs and passwords and enables fast authentication. For people with dementia and Alzheimer’s, this may be useful.

Secure Digital Wallets

Using a digital wallet isn’t limited to just buying things online. Users can store electronic tickets, cryptocurrency wallets, public transportation cards, and boarding passes. While passcodes and secret keys are easy to forget and steal, fingerprint biometric authentication in digital wallets improves security without any hassle. Additionally, one-time passwords and MFA  are optional for users.

How to Protect Digital Wallets?

Broadened Access To Financial Resources

The path to expanding access to financial services is fraught with difficulties. Those who are illiterate, visually impaired, have dementia or Alzheimer’s, or don’t have access to official documents can now access, store, and use the information they need with the help of biometric smart cards.  Biometric smart cards have the effect of making society more inclusive and financially egalitarian. Despite the difficulty, biometric smart cards can help solve a significant portion of the issue of financial inclusion.

Payment Trends And Biometric Smart Cards

The long-term growth of the global biometric smart card market is expected to be supported by the increasing demand for biometric authentication techniques among end-users, such as those in the financial, retail, healthcare, entertainment, and government sectors. Authentication that is both secure and convenient is becoming increasingly important as users opt for non-traditional payment methods.

The requirements for user protection evolve alongside changes in user behaviour. Fingerprint biometrics can offer almost instantaneous payment and identity identification, simplifying consumers’ lives and giving them more options for proving their identity. 

Using biometrics with EMV cards to increase card availability in areas with a high percentage of illiteracy is just one of many approaches to addressing financial inclusion.

Behavioural Trends

Consumers are changing the way they make purchases every day. Many people, such as the founders of Alipay in China and Apple Wallet in Europe and the United States, have impacted how young consumers approach financial transactions. Since RTP infrastructure is operational in sixty markets, roughly 72% of the global population can now use fast payments. 

In 2021, POS showed a significant recovery from the pandemic’s effects, surpassing the market size of 2019, with a YoY market increase of 13 percent despite the shift of card payments to pass-through digital wallets. The rising popularity of POS systems and other forms of cashless payment has important implications for biometric smart cards.

How Biometrics Used To Verify Payments?

Farewell Signatures And PINs

Biometrics, which are challenging to duplicate and always present, have joined the payment industry. Nobody is exactly like another. Additionally, no two features are fingerprints or iris.

That is what distinguishes biometric markers as special data points for purchase authentication. The technology for biometric authentication is still being tested. The time has come. When face recognition replaces PINs

Facia, a provider of issuer solutions for global payments, is leading the development of a debit card that authenticates transactions using face recognition rather than a four-digit PIN.

How? 

• The physical card has a little sensor on it. 
• After receiving the card in the mail, the cardholder enrolls their face data into the card by running their facial scan over the sensor. 
• Throughout this process, similar steps are taken to activate a facial recognition password on a smartphone. 
• After initial setup, the cardholder scans their face on the card’s sensor to authorize the payment transaction.

Quick, Simple, And Safe:

The advantages of biometric payment authentication are strong, giving this trend impetus.

Fast:

Customers’ identities can be verified with a short face scan, which speeds up business transactions and helps them get where they need to go.

Easy: 

Clients won’t need to keep track of their PIN. They always have their biometric information with them.

Secure: 

Compared to traditional security measures, biometrics—unique to each individual—are much more reliable.

A New Payment Frontier:

Although biometric payment technology is currently available, it will take some time to become widely accepted. So keep an eye on this area to see how it develops.