Among the various revolutions that smartphones can claim is the transformation in the way we pay our purchases. Those who leave home only with their cell phone in hand can make payments via Pix, credit card and debit card in a few clicks. But what if to do all this even the smartphone were necessary? This is the future that biometrics payments can provide large -scale in Brazil by 2030.
Over the past 10 years, smartphones dominate growth in participation in payments. The value transacted globally by cell phones in physical stores grew more than 11 times between 2014 and 2024, from $ 1.2 trillion to US $ 14.2 trillion. The data is from the global Payments Report 2025, from WorldPay, which projects an increase of another 76% by 2030, with the volume transacted reaching $ 25 trillion.
While digital payments have been debaning the use of money in kind and cards, biometrics stands as a opponent of smartphones in the future, according to WorldPay report. If the purpose of payment companies is to offer solutions that allow increasingly faster and safe experiences, scanning – the face, retina, palm or digital – has been proving as a powerful alternative.
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“Biometrics is fundamental to our view of the future of payments,” says Leonardo Linares, Vice President of Products and Services at Mastercard Brasil, in an interview with Infomoney. Leonardo Chaves, General Manager Latam from Okto, states that “biometrics will be one of the most relevant technologies of the next decade in Brazil; not by fad, but because it solves three critical points at the same time: safety, simplicity and speed.”
Biometrics is already reality
For those who think biometrics payment is in the distant future, a C&A solution can change this concept. In 2024, the retailer hit the mark of seven million digital cards emitted via C&A Pay, her payment arm. Those who have a flag card can do facial recognition at any network store to pay for a smile, a functionality that all C&A Pay customers used last year, according to the company.
The explanation of Fernando Brossi, Vice President of Operations of C&A, to invest in this technology shows the common goal of efforts to implement biometrics: “It is a solution that talks directly with the need of our audience for a more fluid and connected buying journey”.
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As a way to offer even more convenience to customers, C&A has partnered with the goal to offer PIX invoices on WhatsApp. During the test period, the channel had the best performance of the company, surpassing email, application, website and SMS, and was responsible for the drop of 0.6 percentage point in the default rate, according to the company.
Scanning of the face, retina or digital still needs to grow a lot to threaten smartphones, but the C&A experience shows that Brazilians can rely on new technologies if they are safe and benefit such as reducing queues and faster checkout.
“By 2030, we believe that Brazilians’ digital education will be essential for the advancement of technology; we need to clearly show the customer the benefits and protection involved in the use of biometrics as a means of payment, and I believe that until then we will have reached this,” says Brossi.
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Goodbye, passwords
Mastercard’s goal is to end passwords on online payments by 2030. The mission, which may seem difficult today, has the support of biometrics. “Our future view is that biometrics will eliminate password and transactions with this technology in the online world will be as simple as in the physical world,” says Linares.
The vice president says that the payment company has been investing in behavioral biometrics, a technology that authenticates the user from a series of observations, such as the way to look at the camera, the angle where the camera is positioned and other criteria.
At physical points of sale, Mastercard has been testing technologies with facial recognition: “The consumer will not need to go out with card or mobile, we see evolutions in technology to be as fast as approaching payment; we believe that biometrics will become increasingly common to generate a faster and more convenient experience.”
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Regulation and Technology
One of the factors of optimism for the rapid advance of biometrics is in the regulatory and technological framework of the Brazilian financial system. Linares highlights the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) as a “well implemented” regulation that brings legal certainty for investing in new payment technologies.
On the technological framework side, Pix and Open Finance stand out as solutions that facilitate the emergence of other innovations.
Pix broke time and cost barriers and helped create in Brazil a culture of instant payments, while Open Finance changes the login logic by allowing customers to share their data to access personalized solutions, explains João Santos, CEO of Treeal, a company focused on payment solutions. He says that in this context, biometrics is not “just a security feature, but part of a more fluid journey, with fewer steps and more control by the user.”
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Among the different types of biometrics, facial and fingerprint recognition are the most promising, according to Chaves. They are the most functional in the Brazilian context because they are accessible and easier to scalar, as they can be read by the latest smartphones. In addition, the familiarity that smartphone users have with this type of technology helps increase consumer adherence.
Biometric recognition via the reading of iris or palm of the hand bump into barriers such as cost, infrastructure – because they are not common in smartphones – and acceptance, although they have potential, according to Santos. The reading and storage of iris of more than half a million Brazilians generated a debate on digital security and data protection earlier this year.
Infrastructure and Security
The security issue, quoted by Santos, is not seen by the market as an obstacle to public perception of new payment technologies via biometrics. According to the Digital Security Barometer, made by Mastercard in partnership with Datafolha at the beginning of 2024, 80% of Brazilian consumers believe that biometrics is safer than pin and password to authenticate payments.
For Okto Leonardo Chaves, technology is not a problem either. The challenge, therefore, is on a scale: “Facial recognition works, but needs to be widely accepted by emitters, integrated into systems and adopted with confidence by consumers.”
Working directly with the audience that has been adhering to technology, Fernando Brossi, from C&A says that among the main challenge is the investment to create a technological infrastructure that enables biometrics payments. He recalls that “it is necessary to ensure that all points of sale are prepared for this technology and pass confidence so that the consumer feels 100% safe when adopting it.”
Linares, from Mastercard, also remembers the investment in infrastructure as an obstacle: “The commercial establishment needs to deploy technology, have applications, invest in devices that allow the capture of biometric information safely, there is an investment by the retailer.”
However, with technology advancing and being approved by consumers, “infrastructure tends to develop” as banks, retailers, payment companies and others involved will “build their tips”.
In its report, WorldPay is dedicated to projecting the future of payments and still sees smartphones as the “center of attention,” but admits that in the future consumers “may no longer need to use any device, thanks to biometrics.” Leonardo Linares concludes that “a few years ago, we needed to balance: to gain security, it was necessary to give up convenience; what we now see with biometric authentication is that we can have both.”
