Are online shoppers bogged down by a litany of endless password lists, pins and credit cards? If so, there may be a solution around the corner—one that goes back to basic human biology.
Companies are already beginning to make use of biometric technology like fingerprint scanning and facial recognition. According to Juniper Research, there will be 770 million biometric authentication apps downloaded annually by 2019. With this technology comes not only convenience but an exciting new form of security and identity verification.
Juniper credits this growth to the increase of touch ID hardware in mobile phones, in addition to the connection between hardware and the tokenization of NFC payments to mobile commerce. The transition to fingerprint technology promises to simplify customer experiences.
This new technology also introduces user adoption challenges. There will be an education and ramp up process required to build consumer trust, and shoppers may worry about how brands are using their personal information, for instance. Educating consumers will be critical to helping them understand the benefits of mobile payments.
Despite potential bottlenecks, the future is promising. Security analysts point out that as more apps enter the market, fingerprint-scanning technologies will improve and even more biometric methods will become prevalent. Passwords may soon become obsolete.