Published by Gbaf News
Posted on June 6, 2014
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Simon Cadbury, head of strategy and innovation at Intelligent Environments, leading provider of digital banking software, reveals how digital banking will be revolutionised following yesterday’s announcement by Apple to open the iPhone 5S fingerprint scanner to third party apps as part of iOS8.
Simon Cadbury
“Apple’s announcement that developers will be able to use the iPhone 5S fingerprint scanner for third party apps is a revolutionary move for the financial services industry. This technology is set to trigger a huge upswing in the number of customers accessing their bank accounts via a mobile device. In fact, Intelligent Environments expects mobile banking adoption to double by the end of 2015 as a result. This is based on our research that over half of consumers (51%) would like their banks to look at more innovative ways to secure their bank account such as fingerprint scanners. Plus, given other Apple products like the iPad will probably include TouchID in the near future, this is a huge opportunity for the industry to increase mobile banking usage.
“Fingerprint technology, already used in mobile phones in Japan for authentication of mobile payments, will allow third party developers like financial services institutions to eliminate passwords. The increased functionality of not having to enter passwords manually removes a barrier some consumers have when accessing bank accounts or making payments via a mobile device.
“This development is the start of a biometric banking revolution, which spells the death of the password as we know it. Currently, over a quarter (26%) of Brits avoid using digital banking as they are frustrated they have to remember multiple passwords.
“Biometric authentication is a catalyst for change. The fingerprint scanner could do for passwords what iTunes did for CDs. It won’t be long before the majority of mobile devices incorporate biometric authentication and with banks keen to ensure the highest levels of security for their customers, it will be interesting to see which bank will be the first to integrate it into its mobile banking apps.”
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