According to new research conducted by Paysafe, about 68 per cent of UK consumers are worried that shifting to biometrics can increase identity fraud.
In the report, Lost in Transaction: The End of Risk? a whopping 79 per cent of consumers are in favour of using passwords when it comes to making online payments.
This study is conducted to find out if British consumers are in favour of the Strong Consumer Authentication (SCA) that will roll out this September. Under this new regulation, banks are required to take this into effect, applying SCA to online payments and bank transfers.
According to Stripe, when the SCA takes into effect this coming September 14, authentication will be done in any of three ways. First, password or a pin, second, fingerprint or face recognition and finally, device or phone of use.
All banks in Europe are required to follow this new regulation and present secure versions of the existing authentication channels.
Meanwhile, Paysafe Chief Daniel Kornitzer believes that this new regulation can benefit consumers. Kornitzer said, “Biometrics is a huge opportunity for the payments industry to combat the increasing risk of a card, not present fraud. However, it’s not surprising that there is reluctance among consumers as passwords and PINS have been the central pillar of financial data security for at least 20 years.”
Even if the percentage of people admitting that they are not secure with biometrics, about 54 per cent of UK consumers are already using biometrics to make a payment. They also believed that using this new method is ‘quicker and efficient way to pay for goods and services.’
Paysafe also recommends providing consumer education on the benefits of the biometrics to make a payment. This will ensure adaptation and acceptance of UK consumers to what is said as ‘unknown’.
