How Behavioral Biometrics Secures Real-Time Payments

In this article, we’ll explore why behavioral biometrics is increasingly vital to keeping real-time payments secure. 

3 Key Real-Time Payment Challenges

Despite the conveniences of real-time payments, some core challenges remain. These include: 

1. Fraud and Security Concerns

The speed of real-time payments benefits fraudsters as much as legitimate customers. Bad actors can exploit the speed of transactions, resulting in financial losses for both consumers and their financial institutions. Traditional security protocols are not enough to protect customers in such a fast-paced environment.

How Current Solutions Address Fraud and Security Challenges

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Multi-factor authentication adds an additional layer of security by requiring a second form of verification to enhance protection. This may include passwords, PINs, and one-time passcodes (OTPs). It can also include biometric data like facial recognition or fingerprint scans.
• Device Fingerprinting. This technique profiles a user’s device based on characteristics such as operating system, IP address, and browser type. The system flags any major deviations from this profile as potentially suspicious.
• Transaction Monitoring and Risk Scoring. Advanced analytics, which combines machine learning and rules-based systems to review large volumes of data and make future predictions.  detects fraud by reviewing transaction activity for unusual patterns. This may include activities like strange transaction amounts, purchases at unusual locations, or engagement with risky merchants.

2. Technological Infrastructure

Real-time payment systems are at various stages of development around the world. Many countries still depend on rules-based systems that can’t meet the demands of real-time payments. Building the necessary infrastructure for these services often requires major investments from governments, which can be a complex and challenging process.

How Current Solutions Address Technology Infrastructure Challenges

• Cloud-Based Solutions. Some existing market solutions leverage cloud computing that provides scalable and flexible real-time payment services without heavy investments in physical infrastructure. This is particularly useful in areas with older systems.
• Open APIs. Standardized APIs allow financial institutions and payment networks to easily connect with real-time payment systems, promoting wider adoption despite varying infrastructures.
• Incremental Upgrades. Some regions choose to enhance their current systems gradually. This means implementing real-time payment capabilities step-by-step to avoid the disruption of a complete system overhaul.

3. Friction in User Experience

Many existing real-time payment systems require multiple verification steps, especially for larger transactions. This can make the process cumbersome and frustrating compared to traditional payment methods. It also undermines the convenience of real-time payments that customers expect.

How Current Solutions Address User Friction Challenges

• One-Click Payments. Securely storing user credentials and payment information allows for single-click transactions with trusted merchants, simplifying the process for frequent purchases.
• Tokenization. By replacing sensitive payment details (like credit card numbers) with unique tokens, users can avoid entering this information repeatedly, making the payment process much faster.

How Feedzai Secures Real-Time Payments with Behavioral Biometrics

The rapid pace of fraud in the real-time payments ecosystem puts both financial institutions and consumers at risk. Fraud losses threaten both the customer’s experience and the financial institution’s bottom line. 

Financial institutions must build fraud prevention into their real-time payment capabilities. Feedzai’s Digital Trust solution addresses these pain points by focusing on three key areas: collect, reveal, and respond.

Banks protect customers with ongoing data collection, assessing customer risk, and acting promptly. This helps safeguard customers without causing inconvenience. Behavioral biometrics is crucial for collecting and studying data on how a user normally behaves. This includes their typing speed, mouse movements, and interactions with their device.

Here’s how Feedzai’s Digital Trust solution uses behavioral biometrics to keep real-time payment transactions secure.

Build a Unique Customer Profile

Behavioral Biometrics strengthens security by quickly analyzing how users normally interact with digital platforms, creating a baseline profile of their typical behavior, known as a BionicID™. Banks can spot suspicious activities early before processing any real-time payments with this unique profile. The best part? It works silently in the background, providing seamless protection and maintaining customer privacy.

Standardize Authentication for Real-Time Payments

Traditional authentication methods often rely on specific platforms and multiple API calls, making them cumbersome. Behavioral biometrics, meanwhile, streamlines the real-time payment authentication process. By identifying fraud early and enhancing the customer experience, it encourages wider adoption of real-time payments, even in regions with different payment systems.

Reduce Customer Friction with Passive Authentication

Financial institutions can minimize risk and improve the customer experience by continuously analyzing user behavior to spot anomalies, without gathering personal information. This approach reduces the need for MFA, which delays transactions and frustrates customers.

Why Choose Feedzai?

Real-time payments are becoming the norm, but they bring significant security challenges. Traditional fraud detection methods can’t keep up with sophisticated cyber threats. Feedzai’s Digital Trust solution uses behavioral biometrics and advanced analytics to secure real-time payments effectively.

By choosing Feedzai, financial institutions can leverage behavioral biometrics to gain several key benefits:

Comprehensive Customer Verification

We examine customer BionicIDs at every interaction. BionicIDs consist of online biometric actions, behavior patterns, device data, account behavior, geolocation, and more. This holistic approach identifies abnormal activities and ensures that it authenticates each customer interaction, reducing fraud risk.

Hybrid AI Updates

Customer BionicIDs are continuously analyzed and updated with Hybrid AI technology. This dynamic process ensures that security measures evolve with emerging threats, protecting customers at every session and interaction.

Silent Customer Experience

Our solution silently authenticates users at every touchpoint, eliminating the need for constant verification checks. This ensures a seamless experience for customers while the financial institution can block fraudulent transactions and scam attempts.

Active Defense 

Our solution prevents ID-stealing malware and phishing attacks that trick users into revealing their credentials. It also protects against Remote Access Trojan (RAT) session hijacking malware through step-up authentication or automatic session logoff actions.

Real-time Implementation

All customer BionicID interaction data is pre-integrated into Feedzai’s Transaction Monitoring for banks. You can also integrate the data into other transaction monitoring systems or SIEM systems to improve transaction monitoring decisioning. The solution is easy to install and immediately ready to use, helping banks improve their security quickly and effectively.

Flexible Deployment Models

The solution is available pre-integrated with Feedzai for Transaction Fraud for Banking, as a standalone option, or in conjunction with other Transaction Monitoring solutions, SIEMs, or other fraud management systems via APIs. This flexibility allows financial institutions to tailor their security solutions to their specific needs and existing systems.

Financial institutions must stay ahead of fraud threats to ensure real-time payments remain safe. Behavioral biometrics combined with advanced AI provides a robust, adaptive, and user-friendly solution. 

Like their same-day deliveries and entertainment options, consumers expect their payment transactions to be convenient, seamless, and secure. Partner with Feedzai to put behavioral biometrics at the forefront of your real-time payments security efforts.