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How Biometric Digital Signatures Can Help Secure Your Transactions
The growth of e-commerce in the past decade has brought numerous changes within the retail landscape. Shopping for various goods and services has become more accessible for consumers as companies take advantage of the increased usage of digital media platforms. In addition, utilizing online channels helps businesses efficiently publicize their brands worldwide.
And with the abrupt arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, transactions made in the e-commerce industry surged significantly. In 2021, the market share of e-commerce transactions was projected to be almost $5 trillion and in 2022 that number is expected to reach $5.5 trillion. This is predicted to consistently rise with the continuing dependence on digital trading in the post-pandemic era.
The steady expansion of the e-commerce sector has made the supply chain more convenient for enterprises and their customers. But it has also attracted malicious individuals who consider virtual trading platforms a lucrative gateway to an enormous amount of classified data. Complex industries like e-commerce and payment authentication services have been a constant target of fraudsters, and many consumers still fall prey to their tricks.
Apart from traditional fraud strategies like phishing, swindlers also use tech-savvy methods to manipulate security processes. This is why deploying real-time fraud prevention measures has become a priority for numerous organizations. Investing in a modern cybersecurity tool, such as a biometric digital signature, helps ensure that all transactions between businesses and their clients are highly protected from any form of fraud by ensuring the transactors are who they say they are.
The Growing Need for Biometric Digital Signatures
For many years, in-store purchases dominated the retail industry because of the protection it offers the consumers. The presence of legitimate employees, the physical presence of the goods, and wet signatures helped customers ensure that their information was not compromised. But digital transformation, accelerated by the global health crisis, forced countless companies to transact using online platforms, increasing the risk of fraud occurring with their clients.
Integrating e-signature solutions into the checkout process will significantly bolster the security of transactions. Electronic certificates and FIDO2 cryptographic keys make it hard for anyone to forge digital signatures. This provides an efficient online identity authentication tool for enterprises.
In addition, deploying electronic signatures for fraud prevention is protected by a law promulgated more than two decades ago. The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign Act) of 2000 requires companies to retain digital commercial transactions where virtual signatures are used.
This is why e-signature solutions have maintained stable growth in recent years. In 2021, the market of biometric digital signature APIs was valued at more than $4 billion. And with fraudsters continually lurking around, experts predict that the sector will further expand over the next five years. The industry is forecasted to peak at almost $8 billion by 2027, attributed to the extensive digitalization of numerous sectors like retail, healthcare, and finance.
Innovating the technology that runs digital signatures is vital as bad actors constantly evolve their techniques. Integrating other robust identity verification methods, like biometric authentication, significantly improves countless organizations’ e-commerce fraud prevention efforts.
Biometric Authentication
Biometric l data has been a cutting-edge form of identity proofing used across numerous industries. This is usually done by storing human physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, voices, and face structure, in a secure server which firms can use to verify one's identity when needed. With FIDO2, the biometric information never leaves the user’s device. Biometrics add another robust protection layer for user accounts, confidential data, and online purchases.
Biometric identification is a widely accepted user authentication technology, and several legislations recognize its importance in digital security. One of the requirements under the European Union's PSD2 (2nd Payment Service Directive) guidelines is to include the element of inherence in multi-factor authentication processes. FIDO2 specifications also push for easier verification with biometrics.
The Use of Biometric Digital Signatures
As people continue their reliance on digital platforms for essential tasks, providing the highest level of cybersecurity has become a necessity for numerous enterprises. Biometric digital signatures are robust tools for user verification and offer a high degree of protection. as they ensure the digital identity of the person that is signing the transaction.
Providing reliable security is essential in a digitalized business landscape, especially for enterprises dealing with funds and sensitive consumer data. For the finance sector, biometric signatures will significantly decrease the risks of security breaches and fraud. It will also be more accessible for their clients to authorize financial transactions without compromising their data to malicious actors.
Government transactions will be more seamless than before. Applications for various documents from authorities usually require wet signatures and take a long time to process. Biometric signatures will help expedite the process, especially if the agency deals with many people daily.
Moreover, biometric digital signatures are equally vital in the retail sector, undergoing massive digitalization recently. Industry leaders already utilize biometrics in authenticating their customers, especially those who have consumers create their online accounts. Biometric authentication tools address the shortcomings of using traditional knowledge-based credentials when customers log in to their profiles.
Advantages of Biometric Digital Signatures for Online Transactions
The primary function of biometric digital signatures is to provide companies with the highest degree of online security possible. They significantly help mitigate the risks of fraud, which continues to escalate annually. It will also simplify the transactions between businesses and consumers (B2C) and businesses with other businesses (B2B). All involved parties can save enormous amounts of time and money, which they can allot for other essential tasks.
The Future of Biometric Digital Signatures
Electronic signatures help provide certainty to companies and their clients, with digital transactions becoming the norm in the post-pandemic world. Biometric digital signatures are an efficient tool for authenticating individuals and documents involved in a transaction. Continuous innovations in the industry and the ceaseless attacks from fraudsters will further increase the demand for biometrics, making it the future of signing.
LoginID's FIDO2 passwordless authentication solution is highly secure, simple to integrate, and reduces onboarding friction. It enables companies to offer clients strong authentication and digital identity verification across desktop and mobile platforms. LoginID also has a transaction confirmation with a digital signature authentication tool that adds another layer of fraud prevention in the checkout process.
To learn how LoginID can equip companies and businesses with the necessary fraud prevention tools, get started by registering a free account.
Sources:https://www.vida.id/post/securing-online-transactions-with-digital-signatureshttps://www.bayometric.com/biometric-signature-verification/
