Visa survey reveals consumers are ready to say goodbye to passwords

Visa has just published its findings of a survey conducted on Indians exploring awareness and perceptions of biometric authentication that confirms consumers continue to have a strong interest in new biometric technologies that make their lives easier. New forms of authentication, such as fingerprint, facial, and voice recognition, can make unlocking accounts and payments much easier and more convenient than traditional passwords or PINs — which are difficult to type onto tiny keyboards, easy to forget, and can be stolen.

“The payments ecosystem is witnessing a rapid change in the adoption of new form factors of payments and modes of authentication. For financial institutions, the time has never been better to integrate biometric technology into banking apps and payments experiences for customers,” said TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, Visa, India and South Asia, Visa. “We are excited with the increased popularity of biometrics across Indian consumers.  Today smartphones have advanced features increasing the accuracy and speed of biometrics, such that they can be used for financial transactions. Indian consumers too have discovered the ease of biometric authentication and are open to using this technology for transactions going forward, which augurs well for the Indian payments industry.”

According to the study, 99 per cent are personally interested in using at least one biometric method to verify their identity, and 99 per cent are interested in using at least one biometric method to make payments.  Higher income consumers are more interested than lower-income consumers in facial recognition. Younger consumers (36 and under) are more interested than older consumers in vein pattern recognition. Findings from the survey illustrate consumers’ desire to see the implementation of biometric tools in payment authentication processes.

- Consumers were most familiar with fingerprint recognition, with 32 per cent having used it once or twice and another 63 per cent using it regularly. By comparison, about 48 per cent have used voice recognition in the past and 26 per cent use it regularly.

- The top benefits associated with using biometric authentication for payments are the perception that it is more secure than passwords/PINs (48 per cent) and that it gives consumers peace of mind that their payment is protected (46 per cent).

- Indian consumers overwhelmingly perceive that biometrics are faster (81 per cent) and easier (84 per cent) than passwords.

- 51 percent are concerned both about the risk of a security breach of sensitive biometric information.

To help financial institutions and merchants more quickly adopt emerging biometric authentication solutions, the Visa ID Intelligence platform provides a curated selection of leading third-party authentication technologies. Visa clients can create, test and adopt new authentication solutions with simple integrations using Visa APIs and SDKs.

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