The majority of UK consumers on mobile banking applications are willing to share biometrics with their banks to increase security.
The report from Telstra, titled ‘Mobile Identity – The Fusion of Financial Services, Mobile and Identity’ found that two thirds of UK consumers think that using biometrics including voice, fingerprint, iris and facial recognition would reduce fraud risks. One in four would consider sharing their DNA with their financial institution.
Compared to other options, the UK was particularly favourable towards facial recognition, which gained a 57 percent combined rating for usage and strength of confidence. This compares to fingerprint and eye scanning, which both gained 39 percent ratings and voice recognition which gained a rating of 34 percent.
This news comes as over half of UK consumers cite the security of their finances and personal information and the reputation of their institution for security as their top priority when selecting a financial institution.
However, only a third of consumers claimed to be ‘very satisfied’ with their institutions’ authentication methods and a third were willing to pay £11 per year for more sophisticated security. Nationwide and NatWest customers were the most satisfied.
Rocky Scopelliti, Global Industry Executive for Banking, Finance & Insurance at Telstra commented:
"What we uncovered [in the research] is that when it comes to mobile banking applications, consumers no longer believe in just the safety of passwords and usernames.
"Our research shows consumers are using their mobile banking applications in some really cutting edge ways, so they’re expecting much more than ever before from their financial services providers in terms of security, innovation and functionality."
