The value of biometrically authenticated remote mobile payments is set to reach $1.2 trillion globally by 2027, up from $332bn in 2022.
These transactions use biometrics, typically facial and fingerprint recognition, to authenticate remote mobile payments.
The staggering growth, some 365% up, is driven by recent regulatory changes, with the introduction of SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) pushing greater adoption.
The figures came from new research published by Juniper Research which identified original equipment manufacturer pay (OEM-Pay) solutions, including Apple Pay, as a driver of mobile payment biometrics adoption.
The report urged OEM-Pay vendors to use their influence over smartphone design to enhance built-in biometric systems within devices and ensure that security is maintained as new threats emerge.
The SCA requirement of PSD2 (Second Payment Services Directive) has pushed financial institutions to implement biometric authentication. To meet this requirement, financial institutions have capitalised on smartphone biometric authentication capabilities, which has accelerated the technology’s adoption. The research found that the volume of biometrically authenticated remote mobile payments will grow by 383% over the next five years, reaching 39.5 billion globally by 2027.
What’s more, to maintain trust and reduce fraud, financial institutions are implementing step-up authentication, where certain transactions are escalated for biometric approval based on risk scoring. Therefore, vendors must offer multiple ways to authenticate, as well as developing new techniques to keep biometrics secure.
The report also found that facial recognition is paving the way for greater adoption of biometrics in mobile payments, with OEM-Pay solutions leveraging the near ubiquity of facial recognition capabilities to provide frictionless checkout experiences for customers.
With the use of facial recognition increasing, the technology has become a target for malicious actors using advanced spoofing techniques, such as digital injection attacks. In response, mobile authentication vendors must, said the report, prioritise the design and implementation of enhanced liveness detection, and anti-spoofing techniques, to combat the ever-evolving role of fraudulent players and ensure that security is not compromised.