PAYMENT SOLUTIONS
Founders and thought leaders from Fluent . ai and PayByFace explain why our bodies are becoming the future of payment security
WRITTEN BY : WILL GIRLING
Biometrics today might be regarded as a relatively modern innovation ; the ability to use one ’ s body as a verification tool instead of a password seems straight from the imagination of sci-fi , but the story has an origin story over 100 years old . In 1892 , British polymath Sir Francis Galton created the first fingerprint classification system , which was subsequently adopted and adapted by various institutions over the proceeding decades .
The need , as the US Department of Homeland Security
puts it , was simple , “ the rapid urbanisation of the industrial revolution increased the need for formal methods of identifying people .” By the 1960s , facial recognition had already become semiautomated and the FBI had begun similar research for fingerprinting .
Today there exist four primary sources for biometrics : fingerprints , voice , face , and corneas . Outside of law enforcement , however , these methods of recognition are having a profound effect on contemporary financial services owing to three socio-economic factors :
1 . The potential for ‘ cashless ’ societies 2 . Increased convenience for consumers 3 . COVID-19
Interviewing two industry experts – Vikrant Singh Tomar , Founder and CTO of Fluent . ai , and Emanuele Conti-Vecchi , Co-Founder , CBO and CFO of PayByFace – we explore the rise of biometric payments and what it could mean both for consumers and society at large .