Over half a billion customers worldwide will be using cloud-based biometrics to securely authenticate with their banks within two years, according to a new analyst report.
London-based Goode Intelligence’s Biometrics for Banking report details what might happen to the market over the next five years.
It claims that by the end of 2020, 1.9 billion bank customers will be using biometrics to: withdraw cash from ATMs, prove their identity over the phone, access banking services through smart devices and more. Sometimes a combination of biometrics will be needed, for example to initiative a transfer of funds from a web-based interface.
There’s a $4.8bn market expected for biometrics companies by 2023, but not all types of the technology are the same, according to the report.
Unlike device-based biometric systems — like FIDO, and Apple’s Touch ID and Face ID — cloud-based biometrics capture the information on the device but then send it to the cloud for processing.
Goode Intelligence CEO, Alan Goode, argued that banks need to choose the model that best fits their particular application or use case.
“There is definitely room for both biometric models and one model will not necessarily win over the other,” he said.
“Banks are beginning to understand the benefits and disadvantages of one model over the other and will adopt either or both to match risk, regulations and regional cultural differences. In Europe, GDPR is having a significant impact on the design of biometric systems as biometric data is considered sensitive data that needs high levels of protection.”
Another regulation set to drive the adoption of the technology is PSD2, which will mandate strong customer authentication for many transactions.
The report predicted 586 million bank customers will be using biometrics-as-a-service by 2023, to authenticate over the phone, digitally via their handset, or to withdraw cash from an ATM.