“Why do we have so many passwords?” says, Priyanka. She is a works for a PR firm as an accounts manager. One who has enough to deal and remember about her clients during the day, forget about recalling all of those banking passwords to pay her bills and shop online at night.

Then there are others, those who simply refuse to get on to the internet, “It’s really not my thing. Anyway, isn’t it safer to keep our details off the internet?” says, Rajeev Yadav, retired chemical engineer who comes from an age before the internet, but still uses it to communicate with his grandchildren in the US.

Either ways the reason why most people are getting online and getting on to internet banking, is because most services are going online. From shopping for your clothes, groceries to selecting and booking a table at your favourite restaurant; all of this can not only be done online, but straight from your mobile phone, with an app.

One password leads to another

In terms of convenience you can even transfer money, or send flowers to your friend in the US, with the use of a credit card.

So then going online in terms of banking and credit card usage is really vital for today’s generation. But then comes the barrage of passwords that you have to remember. There’s your login ID, and the password to access your account, then come the transaction password, your debit card PIN and the password that you will need to use it online for any transactions.

And that is just for one account. It gets worse when you have multiple accounts and then you also have the sign in ID’s for every website to add to the mess.

What if all of this just goes away? What if you just had to remember one single password and your fingerprint does the rest?

That is coming, actually, the technology is already here (more on this later) we are talking about biometric, fingerprint scanners. These are clearly the answers to our password-less future, at least when it comes to banking.

Its really a case of the approach that your bank takes. If its a people first bank, then you could expect the it to be open to innovative ways to making your banking experience as simple as possible. Then comes the second type, the ones who are so stuck with security, that customer convenience is not really an option.

Everyone wants to move beyond passwords

A recent study by Accenture also states, that a majority of consumers are willing to jump to the next best option. Frankly speaking, people are even willing to switch banks to make banking a finger-friendly experience.

This study by Accenture covers 24,000 consumers across 24 countries and it comes to the conclusion that “55% of consumers globally are not confident about the security of their personal data, 60% of the consumers feel that usernames and passwords are cumbersome”.

More importantly, its all going mobile, because mobile phones are personal and more importantly, very quick to adapt to change.

Just take a look at how well Apple has changed things for banks. Its Touch ID fingerprint scanning tech, combined with Apple’s non-fragmented hardware approach has really taken it places.

Axis bank recently introduced a refreshed app, which utilizes Apple’s Touch ID. Mr. Rajiv Anand, Group Executive and Head Retail Banking of Axis Bank said, “We are proud to be the first bank to introduce the concept of transacting on your mobile using Touch ID. With the increasing number of customers preferring mobile banking, we see this digital solution gaining momentum as it brings additional convenience to an already superior customer experience.”

Now that does make a lot of sense. This is more so, considering that Axis bank has currently witnessed Rs. 2,400 crore worth transactions through mobile banking, just for the month of June 2015. But it clearly limits the use of Touch ID only to those who own an iPhone 5s, 6 or a 6 Plus.

Fingerprint technology is available on the Android front as well, but its is not as unified as users would like it to be. Currently, manufacturers like Samsung and Meizu have fingerprint scanners on their devices, but it is clearly limited to just those smartphones which is the case similar to Apple’s.

Why you need to thank Google...

But Android M (or the next version of Android) is about to change all of this. Back at Google I/O this year, Google announced its latest version of the Android mobile operating system.

While there were a lot of interesting features, the one that really stood out is Android M’s native support for fingerprint readers.

What this means is that companies like Samsung will not be alone any more. What this also means, that there will be a lot more devices, that will come with fingerprint readers, built in. Making biometric authentication accessible to all. But wait, aren’t fingerprint scanners available on flagship devices only?

We would agree with that, but like with all things mobile, things change quickly. We already have smartphones like the Meizu MX4 Pro, MX5, Samsung Galaxy A8 and many more that are breaking the price barrier and bringing fingerprint scanners to mid-range devices. As time passes by, this could become something standard, like how a camera on a mobile phone has.

So yes, fingerprint scanning is going to become a common thing and will save your from your banking passwords, but you only have Google and its Android M for taking it to the masses.

Tags : Security, fingerprint sensor, Biometrics, mobile banking