For a lot of people out there, mobile payments technology is an exciting prospect underscored by one particular disaster in the making: a complete loss of security that results in huge amounts of money being stolen out from under the user.

That in turn has led to many companies touting security measures, but sometimes even these can get in the way. Passwords strong enough to be protective can be tough to memorize, and the problem is compounded by frequent switching. But NTT DoCoMo may have an answer thanks to the FIDO Alliance.

NTT DoCoMo is Japan’s largest mobile network, so any move it makes will be felt by a host of subscribers; the last report, in fact, suggested that NTT DoCoMo’s subscriber base was around 65 million people, so this is a big deal indeed.

With the move to FIDO, users can use a choice of different biometric security measures to clear mobile purchases, including fingerprint sensors and even iris recognition scanners. The FIDO system reportedly works with a wide array of devices, including those released by Fujitsu, Samsung, and Sharp.

FIDO, in turn, was developed by Nok Nok Labs, and by putting its systems to work, NTT DoCoMo has landed some industry-first classifications. For instance, NTT DoCoMo is now the first carrier with a billing system that runs on FIDO technology, as well as the first to offer a Federated Identity system in the FIDO ecosystem.

The DoCoMo ID system allows users to access a wide array of different services from a single ID system, with passwords replaced with biometric access. It’s also now the first company to offer a mobile device with iris scanning in the Fujitsu ARROWS F-04G, and the first to work with several different device makers at once.

NTT DoCoMo’s vice president and managing director of the product department, Seiji Maruyama, offered up some comment around the work with Nok Nok Labs, saying “By eliminating passwords with Nok Nok Labs’ FIDO-certified solution, we are able to deliver a superior end-user experience that includes enhanced security features; we will also be able to introduce innovative new services and product offerings that are able to utilize this same standards-based platform. After reviewing the different approaches to authentication available today, we settled on the FIDO standards and Nok Nok Labs’ solution as the right strategy for solving the current and future authentication needs of our customers. We determined that Nok Nok Labs had the best solution and a vision that is aligned with ours. We have been very pleased with the technology and support we’ve received from Nok Nok Labs, and we look forward to a long-lasting partnership.”

Offering a better mobile security solution is the first, best step toward getting more users interested in mobile payment systems.

While mobile payments have a clear advantage of convenience, there’s still a lot of doubt as to their ability to keep information safe. It’s much the same thing that online payments originally saw; though now, there’s some ability to build on the successes of the past to get more interest in the mobile payments platform.

With biometrics, there’s a lot less risk of someone guessing a password or stealing it, since the password is actually on your thumb or embedded in your eye socket. We’ll have to wait and see how well this concept works, but NTT DoCoMo may have a real winner on its hands.