Mobile Biometrics ‘To Top £20bn By 2020’

The mobile biometrics market is set to explode over the next five years as more and more of us look for additional ways to keep our money secure, research has predicted.

A study by analysis firm Acuity Market Intelligence anticipates revenues from mobile biometrics hitting $33.3bn (£21.7bn) by 2020, driven primarily by demand from the mobile payments and banking industries.

This windfall will be driven around 4.76 billion biometrically enabled smart mobile devices generating $6bn (£3.91bn) in biometric sensor revenue, the report says.

Secured

Additionally, Acuity projects that four billion biometric app downloads will generate $20bn (£13.05bn) in annual revenues from direct purchase and software development fees.

Lastly, the report forecasts there will be 825 billion biometrically secured payment and non-payment transactions by 2020, generating $6.8bn (£4.4bn) in authentication fees.

Overall, the firm sees three distinct areas for biometrics as the technology begins to grow over the next few years.

This includes biometric sensors being embedded in mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, and wearables), biometric apps offered directly by specialised vendors or mobile service providers such as banks, payment processors, social media sites, retailers, or online identity providers, and biometric authentication for payment and non-payment transactions provided via secure cloud-based services linked to enabled apps on smart devices.

Explosion

“Biometrics are a natural fit for the smart mobile devices we literally hold onto nearly every waking hour,” said Maxine Most, Acuity Market Intelligence principal and leading independent biometric market analyst.

“The explosion in the use of smart devices over the past five years, along with anticipated growth over the next five — especially in developing economies where sub-$100 smart phones have begun to alter the mobile landscape — will bring biometrics into the daily lives of half the global population. By 2020, 100 percent of smart mobile devices will include embedded biometric sensors as a standard feature.”

Recent findings found that British consumers are increasingly likely to support and use biometrics in their technology.

A study conducted by Visa Europe found that three-quarters of 16-24 year olds in the UK would feel comfortable using information such as fingerprint scans, facial recognition or retina scanning in place of traditional passcodes.

Overall, three-quarters (76 percent) of this age group said that they would feel comfortable making a payment using biometric security, with over two thirds (69 percent) believe this will make their lives faster and easier.

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