Biometrics to Become the Predominant Method to Identify Bank Customers by 2020

London, UK, June 1, 2015 (Newswire.com) - ​​In its latest Analyst Report, Biometrics for Banking; Market and Technology Analysis, Adoption Strategies and Forecasts 2015-2020, Goode Intelligence also predicts that by 2020, bank customers will use biometrics as the predominant method of identifying themselves to access bank services. Biometrics for banking is already a mature industry with plenty of successful implementations around the world; millions of bank customers are already using their biometrics on a daily basis to provide secure convenient authentication across every major bank channel.

According to Goode Intelligence, biometrics is being adopted across all of the major bank channels and by the end of 2015 some 450 million bank customers will be using biometrics in a variety of bank scenarios including:

"This is not just about Apple's Touch ID and fingerprint biometrics, our analysis of the current and future adoption of biometrics for banking informs us that at least eight separate biometric technologies will be used by hundreds of millions of bank customers around the globe. Some, like heart, are at the very early stages of deployment but will play an ever increasingly important role in reducing the burden on bank customers to remember complex passwords and ensure they are carrying a hardware OTP token with them."

Alan Goode, Founder of Goode Intelligence and author of the report

• Withdrawing cash from ATMs
• Proving identity when contacting their bank via telephone
• Authenticating into their mobile bank app using fingerprint
• Using a combination of face and voice to fulfil Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures when accessing web-based eBanking services

Growth in the banking industry will be accelerated by a number of factors including the arrival of electronic devices with built-in biometric support (notably smart mobile devices), the adoption of biometric-friendly authentication standards such as FIDO, the pressing need to combat rising  banking fraud and identity theft, the growth of mobile banking and the emergence of wearable banking.

Alan Goode, author of the report and founder of Goode Intelligence said “There is a growing desire from the banking industry to adopt convenient methods to verify the identity of their customers and this is creating the conditions to drive the adoption of biometrics in banking even higher.

“Banking adoption of biometrics is creating a booming biometrics industry with biometric vendors experiencing tremendous growth on the back of the escalation of consumer-led adoption of biometric authentication. The adoption for banking purposes is a major contributor to this growth and we are forecasting that by 2020 it will contribute US$5.5 billion in revenue for companies involved in delivering biometric systems to the banking industry.”   

The report identifies that the major trends shaping this industry include:

• Rise of mobile and multi-modal mobile-based biometric authentication
• Tighter integration with fraud detection and fraud management solutions including adoption of behavioral biometrics/analytics
• Different speeds of adoption and regional differences;
  • Mobile will drive the market in the EU, North America and China
  • Where a region has a mature National ID (NID) system that supports biometrics for identification we shall see use of these systems by banks wanting to leverage this infrastructure – Biometrics as a Service (BaaS) operated jointly by the private sector and the state
• Industry regulation will start to specifically reference biometrics as part of its guidance on two and multifactor authentication
• Biometric cards seen as a bridge to mobile banking services in developed world scenarios and linked to National ID (NID) schemes where supported – cards are still a vital part of a bank’s delivery mechanism
• Cash is still ‘king’ in many regions and the ATM is the main delivery mechanism. The adoption of biometrics for ATM access will increase in regions where it has already been deployed (e.g. Japan, Eastern Europe and South America) and start being deployed in other regions where the PIN is still the predominant authentication mechanism. This includes leveraging the biometric capability of a smartphone to provide Out-Of-Band Biometric Authentication (OOBBA) when accessing ATMs

​Goode added “This is not just about Apple’s Touch ID and fingerprint biometrics, our analysis of the current and future adoption of biometrics for banking informs us that at least eight separate biometric technologies will be used by hundreds of millions of bank customers around the globe. Some, like heart, are at the very early stages of deployment but will play an ever increasingly important role in reducing the burden on bank customers to remember complex passwords and ensure they are carrying a hardware OTP token with them.”

Building on Goode Intelligence’s consultancy engagements with banks assisting them in assessing and choosing the most appropriate biometric system, the report also offers guidance to banks in choosing the most appropriate biometric system to meet their requirements and includes Goode Intelligence’s unique Banking Biometric System Assessment (BBSA) tool.

Further information about the Biometrics for Banking report can be found at the Goode Intelligence website.

 About Goode Intelligence

Goode Intelligence is a leading research, analysis and consultancy organisation for the information security, authentication and biometrics industry; providing services to global technology and telecommunications organisations. 

For further information contact: Michelle Welch, Goode Intelligence

Tel: +44 776 672 8622 

Issued by: Goode Intelligence