There’s little doubt that mobile payments have made a lot of gains as a market since their earliest days, but there’s also little doubt that they’re not making the kind of progress a lot of people were expecting, or even hoping for.
Lux Research may have figured out one of the biggest points missing in mobile payments to help it live up to the hype: biometrics.
Biometrics is a field that relates to parts of the body, here, particularly parts of the body that are specifically unique and therefore useful in things like login procedures or other security matters.
When a biometrics system works, essentially, it takes a human fingerprint, retinal scan, voice print, or similar unique identifier and connects it to a login sequence.
Basically, instead of inputting a password and username, the user presents the biometric format of choice and the system recognizes the user from that.
With biometrics, Lux Research figures, mobile payments industries can not only expect to see faster adoption, but also growth rates of over 200 percent by the end of this year.
The best news for biometric application makers is that Lux Research doesn’t see any one winner emerging; there are a lot of opportunities here, and biometric makers can readily align themselves with mobile payment providers to come out ahead in the end.
Lux Research’s study also discovered some unexpected items, like the most secure biometrics system—the palm vein—may also have a problem in terms of costs of implementation.
Iris scans turned out to be idea for online purchases, particularly through wireless application protocol (WAP) tools. Though again, cost is a problem here.
This represents a great opportunity for all biometrics security developers; the first firm that can offer up high-end security systems that can be had for minimal costs will likely prove the winner here.
With cost being the biggest hurdle for many of the better security features out there, development will need to carry on to realize the full potential in this market.
At stake is no less than a massive field requiring the best in security to carry on.