Globally, the financial segment is looking for ways to address the growing risk of fraudulent transactions. The emerging biometric technology across different modalities such as fingerprint, face, voice, iris recognition seem to generate interest among the financial and banking fraternity due to the security that biometrics can provide. Financial motivation is a key factor behind identity theft. People with stolen credentials lose close to USD 50-60 billion every year. Current systems such as point-of-sale (POS) terminals, web apps, ATMs, and kiosks are major targets for fraudsters. Standalone biometric solutions or multimodal biometrics are being adopted for identity authentications on a trial basis with promising results. Preventing fraud, therefore, is expected to be a major driver for biometric adoption.
Consumer Convenience Augments Biometric Adoption
The urban population is inclined towards the use of biometric solutions to protect their transactions due to the convenience afforded by such solutions. Frost & Sullivan research suggests that 68-70% of the European population are ready to adopt biometric technology in the next year.
Biometrics offers not only security but the convenience desired by customers since it does away with the need for any additional devices or cards for the identification process. This, coupled with customer behaviour towards biometrics, is expected to drive adoption levels in the banking domain.
Government Initiatives Augment Biometric Adoption in Emerging Economies
In countries such as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, initiatives taken by the government are augmenting the growth of biometrics. For example, the Aadhaar project in India has enrolled over 700 million people and is continuing to grow. The government has extended the use of the Aadhaar card to deliver a cashless digital economy. In the Philippines, biometric solutions are used for authentication to deliver financial benefits to the poor. The recent demonetisation initiative and the digital push from the Government of India is also seen as a big driver for the biometric market.
Connected Living
Connected living describes a world in which consumers use many different devices to experience compelling new services that integrate video, voice, and data services to provide access and ubiquitous connectivity anytime and anywhere. The amount of personal data available and shared on the cloud is enormous and hence, requires some form of authentication. Since iris recognition is the most reliable form of biometric verification, connected living is expected to drive its adoption.
Cloud Computing (Smart Clouds) is the Next Trend in Cloud Computing
The next paradigm shift in cloud computing will be the advent of smart clouds. These flexible, customized clouds can address a particular business (or personal) need for a specific period of time and can be integrated with an existing on-premise IT infrastructure base seamlessly and securely. The momentum of the new cloud is expected to unleash new business models that will lead to a confluence of new technological applications and opportunities for software vendors.
The global biometrics market in banking is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.8% from 2015 to 2022.
APAC will witness the fastest growth, with emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, and the Middle East driving adoption levels. Developed economies in Europe and the United States will witness slow but steady growth.
Leading companies such as Morpho, 3M Cogent, NEC Corporation, Anviz Global, Cross Match Technologies, Credence, Hoyos Labs, and Suprema are working on various solutions, not just for the financial and banking segment but also other key segments such as healthcare, automotive, industrial processes, and retail.
