Online consumers ‘ready to embrace biometrics’

than logging on with passwords and one-time PINs, which are difficult to type onto tiny keyboards, easy to forget and can be stolen.

“For financial institutions, the time has never been better to integrate biometric technology into banking apps and online payments,” says Mark Nelsen, the senior vice-president of risk and authentication products at Visa.

“Visa is investing in the best ways to add these technologies to our portfolio of products and services.

“Advances in mobile device features are increasing the accuracy and speed of biometrics, such that they can be used for financial transactions. At the same time, consumers are becoming familiar and comfortable with using biometrics for more than just unlocking their phones.”

According to the Visa study, conducted by AYTM Market Research, 78% of consumers surveyed reported that they are familiar with biometrics. The awareness of fingerprint, voice, and facial recognition, as well as eye scanning is high, and 60% of consumers use fingerprint recognition regularly.

The top benefits associated with using biometric authentication relate to security, but respondents in the survey also expressed the fact that biometrics are faster and easier to use than passwords.

Consumers were most familiar with fingerprint recognition. Almost all the consumers surveyed had at least tried fingerprint recognition, with six out of 10 using it regularly. At least 60% were also interested in using eye scanning to authenticate payments.

The respondents were interested in being offered biometric authentication technology from a variety of providers, including banks, card networks, mobile phone providers and online brands.