French consumers prefer fingerprints to NFC

February 5, 2012 – A survey has found that French consumers are more interested in the idea of using their fingerprint to identify themselves when making a payment than in using a mobile phone for the purpose. 69% of the 1,008 people surveyed by Ifop for Wincor-Nixdorf said they were either very or quite in favour of replacing PIN codes with fingerprint biometrics at the point-of-sale, and only 36% were either very or quite in favour of using an NFC phone to make a purchase. 39% were quite opposed to the idea and 25% were very opposed.

Only 6% of those surveyed said they were definitely ready to change their mobile phone to one that allowed them to make NFC payments. A further 22% said they probably would change their phone for an NFC device while 31% said they definitely would not and 41% said they probably would not.

The survey findings indicate that French consumers are now less willing to adopt NFC payments than they were a year ago. A similar survey conducted by the same organisations last year found that 8% of consumers were strongly in favour of the idea, compared to 6% this year, and 19% were strongly opposed, compared to 25% this year.