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Biometrics in financial institutions 5/8 Businesswire The use of biometrics in financial institutions grows as banks worldwide strive to offer a combination of enhanced security & convenience to their customers. In North America & Europe, regulatory compliance drives the increasing adoption of biometrics. In the emerging regions of Asia Pacific & Latin America, a key driver is the competitive advantage offered by self-service banking solutions. Biometrically enabled ATMs have become popular in Japan & have seen adoption in India, Latin America, & the Middle East. Frost & Sullivan, World Financial Biometrics Markets, finds that the markets earned revenues of $117.3m in 2006 & estimates this to reach $2.07b in 2013. ‘With FFIEC & the Sarbanes-Oxley Act pushing for stronger guidelines in multi-factor authentication & access to customer data & employee audit trails, financial institutions look to adopt biometrics to maintain regulatory compliance. These end users are beginning to realize the advantages that biometrics offer which enhances security, time efficiency & convenience.’ In the past, the financial services sector viewed biometrics as a novelty & implemented them sporadically. With the technology now mature, institutions now regard biometrics as a suitable solution to combat identity theft & bank fraud. In the last 2 years, numerous financial organizations deployed non-AFIS fingerprint recognition & voice verification to meet FFIEC guidelines. Financial institutions historically are slow adopters of new technology due to the complexity of integrating biometrics within the existing infrastructure. Low awareness of the ROI & low number of credible reference sites are major restraints. ‘Lack of awareness has led people unfamiliar with biometrics to think of it an intrusion of their privacy. Even if financial institutions are convinced of the cost savings & adopt biometric solutions, they may face resistance from their employees or customers, who do not want to submit biometric information.’ Vendors must be more pro-active about quantifying the cost-efficiencies that biometric solutions offer to offset the competition from alternate, non-biometric solutions.