Why biometrics and wearables are future POS winners

The Managing Director of a global white-label infrastructure firm for payments, NuWeb, has told Payments Cards & Mobile that wearable technologies including biometric security features are the future of point-of-sale payments.

  Biometrics and wearables are future POS winners

In an interview with Payments Cards & Mobile, NuWeb Managing Director Jose San Miguel said he expects digital wallets and contactless mobile payments to continue to rise in popularity, while data security concerns will also grow.

This last opinion is certainly borne out by fact, as fraud attempts in the mobile channel grew by 10 percent last year to reach record levels, according to data from JP Morgan and the Association of Finance Professionals.

For NuWeb, the logical end-point of these trends is wearable devices that include biometric security – for instance, paying with an Apple Watch or fitbit confirmed with a retinal scan or biometric fingerprint.

Interestingly, all of the technology elements of such a solution already exist, in the shape of Apple Pay by watch, Garmin Pay and more – not to mention biometric security for both wallet and card payments at contactless terminals thanks to players such as Fingerprint and Tietoevry.

Another case made by NuWeb for wearable payments is the capacity for wearables to combine payments with other functions – including tokenised ticketing for events.

Again, this technology is already available as a pilot, with companies such as the UK’s FinGoPay using biometric fingerprinting to enable payments and event ticketing without either a card or a device.

NuWeb also predict big things for digital currencies, with Jose San Miguel noting that, “Digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, have been around for more than a decade, but their adoption rate has been slow due to concerns around security, volatility, and lack of regulation. However, digital currencies are becoming more secure and stable, leading to increased adoption.”

Payments Cards & Mobile Opinion

While we’re not sure about the widespread adoption of digital currencies for payment purposes – we think they’ll grow, but remain marginal compared to fiat cash and electronic payments – the case made for wearable payments plus biometrics is an interesting one.

From where we sit in 2023, card payments continue to dominate and wallets are still an emerging technology.

That said, the capacity for wearables such as an Apple Watch to combine payments, loyalty/ticketing and multiple biometric factors – imagine confirming your ID with your heart rate and fingerprint, for instance – should not be discounted, even if it sounds a bit “Minority Report” when seen from a present-day perspective.

Watch this space…