Frost & Sullivan: Biometrics to revolutionize mobile payment security
14 August, 2013
category: Biometrics, Digital ID
Frost & Sullivan estimates that the explosion in smart phone adoption, the increasing popularity of mobile payments, biometric security solutions will likely play a revolutionary role in payment security.
Frost & Sullivan cites the jump from eCommerce to mCommerce has required the industry to shift its focus, first and foremost, toward payment security. Frost & Sullivan explain that for “card not present” processes, personal account numbers (PAN), expiration dates and card validation codes (CVC) simply don’t cut it anymore to secure a transaction.
Frost & Sullivan sees biometrics, however, as a solution that provides high levels of security along with a tailored, perceptive customer experience that could effectively safeguard secure, mobile payments moving forward. The move to biometrically protected m-payments, however promising, will require careful consideration.
“Protecting the mobile device itself is a first step, necessary to secure mobile payments,” says Jean-Noel Georges, global program director for Frost & Sullivan ICT in Financial Services. “Although a personal identification number (PIN) can do the job, in 2011 more than 60% of smart phone users were not using a PIN to protect their mobile access.”
The number of biometric pilots, projects and iniatives has grown exponentially over the past decade, specifically those that aim to enable user identification on mobile devices. These solutions are not only in high demand, but they are practical due to the incredibly high adoption rate of smart mobile devices.
Secure, mobile biometric solutions often leverage the existing tech and features inherent to the mobile devices – notably the head phones, microphone and camera – as well as the optimal solutions like voice and facial recognition and in some cases bi-modal authentication.
The allure of biometric security, especially on a mobile device, is that the user acts as the unique verification factor to the device, app or payment transaction. Despite the usability, and if done properly, the effectiveness of biometric solutions, they remain expensive and difficult to integrate into mobile devices.
For this reason, Frost & Sullivan suggest that biometric supporters keep an eye on the horizon. “We expect to see biometrics becoming increasingly prevalent over the course of the next three to four years, driven by a desire among vendors and consumers alike to be better protected when accessing mobile services,” says Georges.