Most cardholders in Viet Nam prefer biometric authentication such as fingerprints or facial recognition to PIN numbers or passwords, a study commissioned by Visa has found.

The online study, done by Fabrizio Ward, looked into attitudes towards existing and new methods of payment authentication, with a focus on security, convenience and reliability.

It found that across the board biometric payments are seen as being more secure, faster and easier than traditional methods, with 97 per cent of respondents indicating that they felt fingerprint recognition was a secure method, followed by eye scans at 94 per cent and facial recognition at 92 per cent.

They ranked above methods like PIN numbers at 87 per cent and passwords at 84 per cent.

Some 83 per cent of survey respondents indicated that they had abandoned a purchase online, with the most commonly cited reasons for doing so being that they had forgotten a password (41 per cent) or had trouble logging in (38 per cent).

But 93 per cent said they felt secure using a PIN or password when paying.

Dang Tuyet Dung, Visa Vietnam country manager, said: “The study shows that there is a clear desire for biometrics in the marketplace, and furthermore that Vietnamese consumers are very keen adopters of new technologies. These are positive signs for us as we work with banks to introduce more individualized and secure methods of identifying cardholders so that we can work towards our goal of eliminating fraud while making the payment process even simpler for consumers.”

When asked why they were currently not using biometric authentication, the leading response was that their bank did not support the technology.

A large majority indicated they would switch away from banks, payment card providers and mobile services that do not offer biometric authentication. – VNS