Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to develop the technology that will rid the world of plastic cards and Personal Identification Numbers. And we all believed that these devices were confined to secret service missions, the military, or even our own runaway imaginations. Not any more. This technology has been around for some time, and it has become cheaper and more reliable. Financial institutions are already beginning to replace some of their existing customer-facing banking functions.
Biometric technology is ready for the front line.
As more financial institutions connect to the Internet, capitalise on mobile commerce and strive for added security, the need for biometric technology becomes apparent. Biometric specialists at Meridien Research believe that this technology will be commonplace within two to three years as costs decrease further and more biometric security features are integrated on standard products such as mobile phones and PCs. The biometric market had been virtually non-existent until 1999, but it is expected to flourish over the next several years, as it becomes a mainstream solution. Larger technology companies are also expected to make a move into the biometrics arena, with PC, mobile phone and PDA manufacturers embedding readers into their devices. Many IT administrators have dismissed the idea of biometric solutions as not being a viable technology or have been hesitant to involve themselves in a technology that has not achieved mainstream status.