As MasterCard prepares to bring facial recognition payment services to the UK, US and Canada, research shows that the Dutch prefer selfies to passwords for online shopping authentication.
A recently completed six month pilot that saw 750 ABN Amro credit card users ditch passwords, PINs and confirmation codes and instead pay online through fingerprint and facial recognition has proved a hit, MasterCard claims.
More than three quarters of participants say that they want to continue using a fingerprint and/or facial recognition to complete payments and some nine out of 10 would like to replace their password with biometric identification definitively.
The reasons for the enthusiastic response are convenience and security. Of those surveyed, 95% of the fingerprint users and 80% of the facial recognition users indicate that shopping became more convenient, while almost 75% expect that biometric payments will decrease fraud.
MasterCard, which has also piloted the technology in the US, is now ready to roll out selfie and fingerprint payments in America, Canada and a host of European countries, including the UK, this summer. Testing is also underway on voice and iris scanning authentication.
Arjan Bol, country manager, MasterCard Netherlands, says: "We are now examining the possibilities to integrate our technology in the banking and tech giants’ apps to make payment using a selfie or fingerprint even easier."