Contactless Payments Are Taking Off - Why Identity-Bound Biometrics Are Essential For Authentication

When Amazon Inc. AMZN launched Amazon One — its contactless payment system — it put payments in the palm of your hand. But Amazon is not the only company offering advanced payment and identity verification technology.

Passwords As A Thing Of The Past?

People are on the lookout for more convenient ways to pay — it’s a win when you don’t have to carry multiple cards or remember passwords. Amazon One and other virtual payment systems make that kind of convenience a reality.  At the same time, concerns around data privacy increase as customers face the possibility of sharing personal data.

Biometric authentication, such as palm scanning, gains popularity every day and is considered a more secure and superior method that should be part of any holistic multi-factor authentication (MFA) strategy. 

Biometrics-based technology uses physical attributes such as fingerprint, palm, retina or face scanning to authenticate the user. Unlike traditional MFA strategies of log-in credentials or one-time passwords (OTP) sent via SMS, biometrics are less vulnerable to hacking, social engineering, account takeovers, and damaging cyberattacks.

Credit card companies Mastercard Inc. MA and Visa Inc. V have gotten on board with this trend and enabled contactless payments and biometrics-based authentication for their transactions. Other digital wallet apps like PayPal Holdings Inc.’s PYPL Venmo and Zelle have become players in contactless transactions as well.

Reports show that almost 74% of consumers have a positive attitude toward biometrics for access control, and the market for contactless biometric technology is projected to reach $18.6 billion by 2026 according to KBV Research.

Secure, Easy-To-Use Access Control 

Companies like BIO-key International Inc. BKYI — with expertise in identity and access management (IAM) and Identity-Bound Biometric (IBB) solutions — could play a big role in providing secure, easy-to-use authentication options for organizations while eliminating the high costs associated with traditional methods. 

BIO-key boasts a one-of-a-kind MFA mobile app — MobileAuth™ — that integrates the power of IBB across multiple authentication modalities, allowing customers to build a more complete MFA strategy.

The app can safeguard critical data by authenticating the person with IBB using PalmPositive™ which uses a palm scan, or FacePositive(™)  which uses facial recognition. The app also supports traditional MFA methods including Apple AAPL iOS or Google GOOG Android device-based biometrics and push tokens. It provides flexibility for employees, customers, and suppliers to choose from multiple, easy-to-use options to authenticate while offering the superior security and convenience that is offered by IBB methods.  

The company says that a key use case for MobileAuthTM is customer identity and access management (CIAM), scaling access to millions of customer identities with no additional hardware required.

“With cybercrime on a steady rise, it’s more important than ever to have a strong, easy-to-use, and affordable multi-factor authentication strategy in place," said Michael DePasquale, BIO-key’s chairman, and CEO. “We’re at a critical point in the evolution of authentication where stronger solutions must include a factor that’s based on ‘who you are.’ We’re extremely proud to address this need by empowering our customers to take full advantage of traditional authentication methods as well as Identity-Bound Biometrics from the convenience of any mobile device using MobileAuth.”

To learn more about BIO-key MobileAuth, Identity-Bound Biometrics, and PortalGuard, visit the BIO-key website.

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Featured image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay