Payments using biometrics and QR codes are showing signs of greater acceptance after a year of Covid-induced lockdown has fundamentally affected the way consumers shop and pay, according to a new report from Mastercard.
Biometric-based payments—using a person’s physical characteristics to authenticate and/or execute a payment in either an online or in-store environment—used to suffer from a perception problem that they were not as secure as card payments. As consumers get increasingly comfortable with devices that use fingerprints or facial recognition as security features, this perception is waning, according to the report.
More than half of consumers (53 percent) now agree that biometric checkout is secure. And, 60 percent report feeling safer about using biometrics to verify a purchase than a PIN.
QR codes are also gaining more acceptance, especially in developing markets. This payment method, which is often employed at the physical point of sale or in P2P payments and is classified by payment networks as a card-not-present payment, is increasingly considered a clean and convenient way to interact with merchants.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) in the Latin America and Caribbean region expect to use QR codes and other emerging technologies in the next year, the report said. In the Middle East and Africa, that number was 63 percent.
“The pandemic made us think differently, partly out of necessity,” said Craig Vosburg, chief product officer at Mastercard. “To deliver the choice and flexibility that consumers need—and increasingly expect—retailers worldwide need to offer a range of payment solutions that are easy to access and always on. As we look ahead, we need to continue to enable all choices, both in-store and online, to shape the fabric of commerce and make the digital economy work for everyone.”
