Americans Becoming More Comfortable with Biometric ID 

Not so long ago, it was widely assumed that Americans would never take to fingerprint ID, given their general distrust of anything even vaguely Big Brother-ish. But this attitude has undergone significant change recently for a variety of reasons ranging from Apple's Touch ID to Target's data breach.

Today, 80 percent of Americans support "futuristic" payments technologies including tools such as sensor fingerprinting, facial recognition, retinal scanning and voice control, according to the results of a study by Viewpost, a B2B network for invoicing, payments and cash management.

An increasing comfort level with paperless electronic transactions (more than half of those polled said they were paid via direct deposit) appears to be driving significant interest in even more sophistication in electronic payment methods -- and the methods for securing them, Viewpoint said in a press release.

Notable findings from the survey:

• 50 percent of respondents believe that fingerprint technology will be used for payment authentication within the next 10 years;

• 35 percent see facial recognition as a key authentication technology for payments within 10 years and 32 percent trust facial recognition for securing electronic payments;

• 31 percent of survey participants cited retinal scanning as a viable technology for authenticating payments and 18 percent seeing themselves using voice control to make payments by 2027.

"People are willing to embrace a more convenient, frictionless payments future," Viewpost CEO Max Eliscu said in the release. "But electronic invoicing and payments are just the beginning -- the future of the payments industry is highly dependent on leveraging innovation like biometrics, data integration, and a growing variety of payment methods to securely drive more volume with visibility, speed and simplicity."