How long does it take a consumer to swipe their credit card at the point of sale? Two seconds? Five seconds? How long does it take a consumer to enter their password into their mobile phone to make the same payment at the point of sale? Actually the answer doesn’t matter -- not unless the time it takes to use a mobile payment app is less than the time it takes to swipe a piece of plastic.

Until making a mobile payment becomes faster than using a credit card, mobile payments will be stuck in low gear. And the key to making mobile payments fast is to use biometrics to solve the authentication problem and eliminate the need for consumers to enter a password. Widespread adoption of biometrics -- whether its face, fingerprints, hand geometry, handwriting, iris, retinal, vein, or voice -- is the tipping point for mobile payments.
 
We often think of biometrics as being leading technology, but in fact, biometrics has been around since 1858 when Sir William Herschel used handprints to identify Civil Service of India employees from others who might claim to be employees on payday. And consumers are becoming more comfortable with biometrics in the form of voice and fingerprints. Research firm Frost and Sullivan estimates that the number of global biometrics smartphone users will reach 471.11 million in 2017.