Palm-Based Bio-Metric Authentication Framework: Secure Contactless Payments

Abstract

The increasing popularity of digital payment systems has raised concerns about the security of authentication, privacy, and trust. Traditional methods like passwords, personal identification numbers, and cards are still susceptible to fraud, theft, and usability issues. Biometric authentication has been identified as a potential substitute, with palm-based biometric systems, specifically palm vein biometric systems, offering improved security through contactless functionality and spoofing resistance. This paper introduces a trust-focused conceptual framework and system design for palm biometric payment systems, taking a system-level engineering approach that combines principles of biometric sensing, secure payment processing, and governance- focused adoption. The proposed conceptual framework for palm biometric payments organises the system as a multi-layered socio-technical system, including biometric sensing, authentication security, payment processing, and trust management. In contrast to purely algorithmic research, this study takes a system design approach, highlighting architectural choices, privacy- focused data management, and scalability needs that are essential for practical implementation. The analysis illustrates how palm biometric payment systems can effectively mitigate the major shortcomings of current digital payment authentication systems while meeting regulatory and ethical requirements. By connecting biometric engineering with system design and technology adoption needs, this research offers a holistic basis for future studies and the development of secure.

Introduction

The global financial sector is rapidly evolving due to fintech, mobile computing, cloud technologies, and AI, with digital payment systems becoming widespread. Traditional authentication methods like passwords, PINs, and OTPs face security risks such as phishing and credential theft. Palm vein biometrics offers a promising alternative because vein patterns are unique, internal, and difficult to forge, providing secure, contactless authentication.

Current research on palm biometric payment systems is fragmented, focusing either on technical accuracy or user acceptance. This paper proposes a unified system-level framework integrating biometric sensing, secure authentication, payment processing, user trust, and governance. The framework includes:

• Biometric Sensing and Feature Layer – captures and processes palm vein images with noise reduction, ROI extraction, and spoof detection.

• Authentication and Security Layer – encrypts templates, ensures privacy, and protects against breaches.

• Payment Processing Layer – integrates with financial networks, enabling scalable, real-time transactions.

• User Trust and Governance Layer – ensures privacy, consent management, regulatory compliance, and transparency.

The system architecture modularizes acquisition, preprocessing, authentication, transaction, and data management, supporting secure, scalable, and user-friendly deployment. It complies with international privacy and biometric standards (GDPR, ISO/IEC 24745), ensuring encrypted template storage, template revocability, and minimal retention of sensitive data.

Conclusion

This paper presented a comprehensive conceptual framework and modular system architecture for palm biometric payment systems, addressing both technical and sociology-organizational dimensions of deployment. By integrating biometric sensing and feature extraction, secure authentication mechanisms, payment processing infrastructure, and governance-oriented design principles, the proposed framework moves beyond algorithm-centric approaches toward a holistic system perspective. The study emphasises that effective biometric payment solutions must balance recognition accuracy with system-level integration, trust, and regulatory compliance. Through a layered architectural design and explicit alignment with security and privacy standards, the framework demonstrates how palm bio-metrics. can be embedded into real-world payment ecosystems in a manner that is secure, scalable, and user-centric. Furthermore, by incorporating adoption-oriented considerations such as transparency, consent management, and ethical governance, the proposed approach addresses critical factors influencing long-term user acceptance. Overall, this work provides a foundational reference for researchers and practitioners seeking to design, evaluate, and deploy next-generation biometric payment systems. The framework offers a flexible basis for future empirical validation and technological enhancement, supporting the continued evolution of palm biometric authentication as a viable component of smart financial and identity-driven systems.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Abhijith K, Mrs. Divya P. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.