Financial Biometrics Month 2017: The Primer

FinTech is the front line of biometric innovation and deployment. That was the key takeaway from Money20/20 last week in Las Vegas where FindBiometrics was reporting live from the exhibition floor. But the Financial ID conversation doesn’t end there. November is Financial Biometrics Month, in which we are dedicating our featured articles, interviews, and online events to FinTech and biometrics.

To kick things off, we have compiled a primer of some key trends and recent news in financial biometrics. Take a look!

Financial Biometrics Innovation at Money20/20

The biggest and most disruptive financial industry event of the year took place in October, and biometrics were all over the place. Money20/20 USA, held annually in Las Vegas, provided a platform for major biometrics industry announcements and offered insight into just how integral strong authentication via biometry has become in the world of money.

The links below will take you to all the top biometrics news out of Money20/20 as well as our series of over a dozen exclusive audio interviews with experts at the conference:

FindBiometrics and Money20/20 Announce Premier Partnership

Financial ID Briefing: Biometrics at Money20/20

INTERVIEW ROUNDUP: Money20/20’s Biometric Conversation

Money20/20: Finance is the Front Line For Biometric Innovation

INTERVIEW: Rob Douglas, CEO, BioConnect at Money20/20 2017 [AUDIO]

INTERVIEW: Frances Zelazny, VP, BioCatch at Money20/20 2017 [AUDIO]

INTERVIEW: Tracey Davies, Managing Director, Money20/20

Mobile Payments

Arguably the use case that spurred biometrics to go mainstream with consumers, mobile wallets combine smartphones, strong authentication, and contactless payments to enable easy shopping online and in retail stores. The first generation of modern mobile wallets leveraged fingerprint sensors for authentication, but now that the mobile ecosystem widely supports face, iris and voice biometrics, mCommerce is popularizing a very wide array of authentication modalities.

Check out some of the more recent developments in the realm of mobile wallets:

e-Wallets Surpass Debit Cards in US as Mobile Payments See ‘Rapid Growth’: Worldpay

FIDO-Based Biometrics Are Going To Make Shopping With Android Easier

OT-Morpho Security Backs Samsung Pay for Santander Bank in Spain

Samsung Pay Purchases Quadrupled in Its Second Year

Apple Pay Offers Safe Way to Pay at Safeway

BRIEF: What’s Next for Biometric Payments?

Biometric Credit Cards

While more and more people are paying with their phones, plastic isn’t on its way out anytime soon. New innovations in flexible and low-power fingerprint sensors have given rise to the next big thing in payment card technology: on-card fingerprint sensors. For years the concept was floated, and biometric smart cards already saw deployment in physical access scenarios, but in 2017 fingerprint-secured payment cards became a massive trend in the biometrics space. Take a look at the most recent biometric payment card news and research:

BRIEF: Excitement Over Biometric Smart Cards Has Reached a Boiling Point

Massive Growth in Store for ‘Powered Payment Cards’: ABI Research

IDEX Becomes Registered EMVCo Vendor

IDEX & Strategic Partner To Aggressively Continue Biometric Smart Card Development

Zwipe Ships Order of Biometric Tech For Payment Cards

Precise Biometrics Software Powers AirPlus Biometric Payment Card

Biometric Banking

While fingerprint sensor powered mobile wallets were first finding their way into the pockets of early adopters, forward thinking banks were turning to biometric software to bring convenience and security to their mobile apps. Face and voice biometrics that could be implemented through the camera and microphones of otherwise non-biometric handsets enabled financial institutions to offer strong authentication to customers regardless of their preferred phone brand. Now, biometric banking has reached new levels of maturity, with the world’s biggest institutions offering the best in not just face and voice recognition, but also iris, fingerprint, and even vein-pattern scanning. And it goes beyond mobile too, with ATMs and branch locations embracing biometric ID.

The following links should paint a picture of just how diverse the biometric banking landscape has evolved to become:

BioConnect Integrates FacePhi Facial Recognition Solution

Bank Independent To Offer Enacomm’s Voice Authentication

New Diebold Nixdorf Concept Enables ATM Access Via Selfie

FacePhi Partners With Red Link in Argentina

Digibank Brings Speech-Powered Mobile Banking To Indonesia

U.S. Bank Customers Can Pay Bills By Voice Command Using Alexa

New Barclays App Feature Lets Users Send Money Transfers By Asking Siri

Bank of America Explores Iris Biometrics For User Authentication

Financial ID Briefing: Banking With A Selfie

Anti-Fraud

One of the most prominent financial ID trends of 2017 has been the rise of behavioral biometrics – software that runs invisibly in the background of an authenticated session in order to weed out sophisticated fraud attempts. Major financial institutions have embraced behavioral biometrics, and it is fair to say the frictionless modality is set to become even more widespread in the coming months and years. Find out what all the buzz is about by reading the following links:

Behavioral Biometrics Can Counter Same Day ACH Fraud: BioCatch

Behavioral Biometrics Offers Powerful Tool Against Synthetic Identity Fraud: BioCatch

NuData Success Stories Demonstrate Power of Behavioral Biometrics

Behavioral Biometrics: A Better RAT Trap

Naked Payments

At the futuristic forefront of biometrics in FinTech, Naked Payments are becoming increasingly common. Naked Payments solutions are the pinnacle of convenience – solutions that allow shoppers to pay for goods and services at point of sale with nothing but biometrics. From fried chicken, to supermarket groceries, to just about anything in India, Naked Payments solutions let you pay with your identity.

Alipay Enables Naked Payments at Upscale New KFC Restaurant

UK Supermarket Trials Naked Payments System Based on Finger Vein Recognition

Singapore Schools to Connect Student Accounts to Fingerprints

FinTech Partnership Aims to Establish Naked Payments Network in Middle East

Financial ID Briefing: Naked Payments For Kentucky Fried Chicken

Aadhaar Pay Goes Live in India

The Bleeding Edge

Naked Payments are just the beginning. Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, wearable technology, and the Internet of Things are converging with commerce, and biometrics is at the intersection — defining identity and authenticating transactions. Here are just a few of the latest innovations in biometric finance changing the way we relate to money: