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finance & strategy
The Future of Biometrics
Consider a test from the U.K.-based National Physical Laboratory’s Centre for Mathematics and Sci- enti c Computing that suggested that a typical biometric nger-
print system might fail to enroll 1 percent of applicants thanks to
various factors, including age. Older consumers and women are more likely to be rejected than are men and children, the researchers found. That 1 percent might not seem like a lot, but it matters be- cause bad press and diminished enthusiasm for the payment method could decline in the wake of rejected enrollments. And the numbers add up when one consid- ers a large system, such as a world- wide mobile wallet.
Some payments professionals worry that consumers, already barraged with near daily reports of data breaches, might be reluc- tant to trust a company to safe- guard their biometric data. Sure, that data is relatively hard to copy, and the payment and retail indus- tries are taking steps to protect that data behind digital fortresses, but if the last decade has shown anything, it’s shown that deter- mined criminals can nd access
to anything they want, including some of the deeper reaches of the U.S. government.
Still, there’s a lot of enthusiasm for the future of biometric payments, especially as data breaches force
many consumers to go through the relatively cumbersome process of changing and storing multiple passwords. A recent survey from Gigya, which sells consumer iden- tity management technology, found that 80 percent of consum- ers who have a preference when it comes to authentication think biometrics are safer than pass- words, and that 68 percent of consumers don’t create accounts on sites deemed to have “complex password requirements.”
Not only that, but relatively high- wealth consumers are starting to weigh in: Barclay’s this summer began expanding its voice bio- metric phone-banking system