Multi-Factor Authentication Market Will Be worth Of $5.45 Billion by 2017

Friday 25 January 2013, Amsterdam

According to a new market research report “Two Factor Authentication Market- By Model / type (two, three, four & five-factor), Application (Banking & Finance, Healthcare, Government, Defense, Travel & immigration, Consumer Electronics and Commercial Security)& by Geography – Forecasts (2012 – 2017)”, the total market is expected to reach $5.45 billion by 2017, at a CAGR of 17.3%.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) implies user and employee authentication by verifying two or more authentication techniques (hardware token, One Time Password, Password/PIN, and biometric traits) provided by him/her. MFA has become the most important part of security due to increase in unauthorized access, frauds, border intrusion, etc. MFA is increasingly getting deployed at all the security checkpoints of airports, commercial complex, retail malls, banking & finance, etc. MFA provides accurate authentication and negligible margin of duplicity or error.

This report describes the various types of biometric and non-biometric technologies such as hardware and software tokens, OTP (One Time Password), and biometric recognition that are being used for different applications. The above-mentioned techniques can be combined to form two-, three-, four-, and five-factor authentication models. Out of these models, two-factor authentication is commonly used in most of the applications. Two-factor authentication is the oldest type of MFA technique and can be seen at banks, ATMs, and various government offices.

The report also throws light on the various application areas of MFA technology such as government, banking and finance, travel and immigration, defense, consumer electronics, commercial security, and healthcare. MFA technology is slowly spreading across all the industries wherever security is of the prime concern. MFA is largely deployed in the application areas like government, travel and immigration, banking & finance, and defense.

Two-factor authentication model covers almost 90% of the market for multi-factor authentication, wherein banking & finance, travel & immigration, commercial security are the major applications. Three, four-, and five-factor authentication models are less used when compared to two-factor authentication. The three-factor authentications include smart card with pin and biometric technology, smart card with two biometric technologies, pin with two biometric technologies and three biometric authentications. On the other hand, four- and five-factor authentication includes the use of smart card and pin with more than one type of biometric technology such as face recognition, fingerprint recognition, voice recognition, etc. Three-factor authentication is mostly used in private access areas like bank lockers, secret data access, defense and travel & immigration. The use of four- and five-factor authentication models is restricted to high cost projects in defense, research, and government-based applications.

Global MFA market is expected to reach $5.45 billion by 2017, at an estimated CAGR of 17.3%. North America is the biggest multi-factor authentication market; followed by Europe and APAC. In ROW, Middle East and Africa are the largest contributors.