MasterCard Looks to Biometric Future of Security

MasterCard is on the cusp of a full embrace of biometric security, according to a V3 article by Roland Moore-Colyer. The company is working with Visa to ensure that such security measures effectively replace the password system in a protocol set to roll out next year.

In an interview with V3, MasterCard’s senior VP of Authentication Strategy, Bob Reany, enthused about the possibilities offered by the biometric technology that is now emerging in smartphones, such as Apple’s TouchID fingerprint-scanners, which are installed on all of its new mobile devices. He noted that the mass market was already adopting the technology, and so MasterCard needs only to apply their own layer of software to harness it; thus, it’s “actually the highway for people to have a much safer experience.”

The company plans to experiment with a number of different biometric security technologies, including using cardiac-monitoring wristbands for authentication, but the end result is ultimately that customers will use biometric authentication rather than passwords, which will become archaic. It signals a healthy openness to the new opportunities offered by biometrics. While we’ve known that MasterCard has its own biometrics-enhanced credit card in the works, it’s only now becoming very clear that the company intends to use it as part of a comprehensive approach that will also see collaboration with the emerging players in mobile commerce such as Apple.