From selfies to fingerprint scanning to iris recognition to vein scanning, banks and financial institutions around the world are pushing ahead with biometric authentication. This is done solely with the view to ameliorate the risk of data theft, prevent fraudulence and enhancement customer service.

Since such similar efforts from banking institutions, major proportions of customers either feel relevant to trust in this relatively new form of security or do not understand it at all.

A report by HSBC revealed how less than 46% of more than 12,000 respondents in 11 countries did not trust the biometric technology and were not willing to use them in place of their run of the mill pins and passwords.

However, a survey commissioned by Equifax demonstrated how 56% of their respondents preferred the use of biometric authentication in banks to sign into their online banking accounts over the current used usernames and passwords.

They said survey also reported the respondents' affinity towards uncommon authentication methods within the regular fingerprint scanning.

The people in the United Kingdom were keener than anywhere in the rest of the world when it came to embracing biometric security. They are equally open to replacing their passwords, not just with fingerprint scanning but iris recognition as well.

Key finds from the report

• Fingerprint authentication is the most preferred way to authenticate into bank accounts. One out of every 3 customers mentioned how they'd prefer biometric technology like Apple's Touch ID.
• With a 14% margin, customers preferring fingerprint authentication (33%) outnumbered those choosing regular passwords (19%).
• Only 13% of respondents identified memorable questions as an additional layer of security above passwords.
• A major chunk of bank customers lacking access to fingerprint scanning.
• 64% of them were not able to avail the biometric facility.
• A large number of banks supporting the technology supported only the iOS.
• The top three mobile wallet providers are Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, and all of them seamlessly support fingerprint scanning and for POS and online transactions.
• More and more banks are in direct competition with mobile wallet providers

Data breaches and hacking scandals are making a lot of headlines laTely. Following the ransomware WannaCry, concerns over security have escalated swiftly and more and more people are losing trust in protection please passwords can offer.

To better address the disparity between biometric security and its availability, and recognize the strong customer interest, security-minded banking institutions would roll out biometric authentication technology specifically fingerprint scanning, this year.