BRIEF: What’s Next for Biometric Payments?

It’s now a more-or-less normal thing to be able to buy something by holding your phone near a payment terminal and scanning your finger to confirm the transaction – not yet commonplace, but certainly not unheard of. That’s thanks in large part to the pioneering efforts of Apple, which kickstarted the mobile biometrics revolution with its introduction of Touch ID on the iPhone back in 2013, and then launched the concept of mobile payments with Apple Pay. Rivals have quickly followed suit, with the result being that fingerprint sensors are now standard features on new smartphones, and that there are multiple mobile-based payment services, and more on the way.

But the two new concepts have also combined to encourage another shift: The mainstreaming of biometric payments. A growing number of consumers are accepting that payments can be verified through not only fingerprint scanning, but iris scanning and beyond. And that’s leading to some interesting new developments beyond fingerprint-based payments.

Here’s how:

Samsung is already pioneering iris-based payments with its latest devices and Samsung Pay, with banks starting to get on board too:

Samsung Aims to Enable IoT ‘Payment Ecosystem’ with Iris Biometrics

Bank of America to Trial Iris Login for Mobile Customers

Apple is looking to replace Touch ID with facial recognition for Apple Pay transactions:

Facial Recognition Coming to Apple Pay, Suggest HomePod Code Findings

iPhone 8’s Pearl ID to Operate in ‘Millionths of a Second’

LG, meanwhile, is focusing on both facial and voice recognition in its next device, which could translate to face- and even voice-confirmed transactions on LG Pay:

LG’s Next Phone to Feature Always-On Facial, Voice Recognition

LG Dips a Toe Into mPayments Market with LG Pay

And efforts to link payments to voice-based AI assistants could lead to the mainstreaming of transactions based on voice and speech recognition:

New Barclays App Feature Lets Users Send Money Transfers By Asking Siri

Apple Confirms P2P Payments Speculation, Plans Fall Launch with iOS Update