Have Biometric Technologies Brought the FinTech Industry to the Next Level?

The future of the FinTech industry might have more to do with a person’s individual biology than numbers and chips in the future, multiple reports indicate. Known as biometric technologies, this group of payments innovations remove the old pin systems and chips of old and replace them or augment them with fingerprint scanners and other biometric methods.

The advantage for businesses is that biometric technologies are much less prone to fraud and theft. Beyond that, biometric technologies breakdown the barriers between brick-and-mortar businesses and online concerns through the creation of a truly universal process that can be utilized by both spheres. We’ve identified seven trends in payments innovations that biometric technologies are helping to enable and how they are taking the FinTech industry to the next level when it comes to payment processing and identity protection.1. Biometrics Breaks Down Barriers Between Consumers and BusinessesOne of the biggest problems for online merchants is the process of completing a transaction in as smooth, efficient, and secure manner as possible. Why? More customers are likely to abandon the transaction entirely if they run into various hurdles during the checkout process. Biometric technologies are breaking down these barriers by giving merchants the verification and data points they need and the convenience the customer desires.2. Biometrics’ Rise Goes Hand-in-Hand with SmartphonesBecause more and more consumers own a smartphone, FinTech can rely upon this device as a vector for pushing forward payments innovations using biometric technologies. Examples of this include the finger-print scan to complete downloads or purchases or even the use of retinal scanning to verify the person’s identity.3. The Current Focus is on Convenience Over SecurityAs many biometric technologies are still in their nascent stages, the current emphasis is on convenience for the consumer rather than complex processes centered around security. The advantage for FinTech here is that it makes biometric technologies more common and widespread among both businesses and consumers thus enabling the future implementation of other technologies that much easier. This will also help make bespoke, industry-specific solutions more viable.4. Biometric Technologies are Working with Traditional Tech to Drive Payments InnovationsTraditional technology, like ATMs, are incorporating biometric technology into their infrastructure thus augmenting their own security apparatus while also spreading this payments innovations to other segments of the financial industry. Other implementations of this include point-of-sale (POS) biometric technologies in traditional retail establishments.5. Mobile Banking is at the Forefront of Biometric TechnologiesAnalysts predict that the future of banking will be less about physical locations and more focused on mobile banking. The emerging eBanking revolution is not only transforming the financial system but also giving rise to fully-online players that eschew physical locations entirely for a wholly online experience.6. Multifactor Biometric Technologies and the Future of FinTech SecurityThough many systems currently use one type of biometric identifier, it is expected that future executions of this technology will actually be comprised of multifactor authentication such as fingerprint scan, retinal scan, and even a heartbeat scan, among others. The reason for this is twofold: To increase the robust security that biometric technologies offer and also prevent and possibly eliminate most payment fraud and identity theft.7. Industry-Specific Solutions on the HorizonThe traditional one-size-fits-all banking model is giving way to niche and specialized services, all of which biometric technologies is helping to enable. Because not every industry has the same security requirements, the move towards bespoke solutions tailored to certain niches or even specific companies will become more and more common.