Technology advancements once considered highly sophisticated and specialist infrastructure were now just commodities in the acceleration of adoption, which saw 90 per cent of the world’s data created in the past two years, said a PwC report.

More than 60 per cent of adults across the globe are using mobile media regularly, with mobile internet in the hands of 35 per cent of the world’s population; niche biometric offerings such as retina scans are now a regular commodity, and data accumulation to create customer-centric products is now the norm, according to PwC.

In PwC’s ‘Future of payments in Australia – The future of transaction banking and payments in 2020’ report,  the multinationals services firm said advancements in technology have moved with such speed that mobile digital security offerings which utilise biometrics such as voice recognition, finger print scans, and retina scans were now commonplace.

“Authentication through retina scans and biometrics is already a reality,” the report said.

“These advancements are turning what used to be a discrete payment action – swiping a card – into a single step for everything from marketing at the front end to in-depth analytics at the back end.”

PwC said a shift into insight around digital commerce over the next three years to 2020 would see a further move toward the establishment of more integrated digital frameworks.

“Digital commerce will keep accelerating, establishing a new paradigm where banks, card providers and retailers see more, know more, and exchange more data about customers (consumer and business) than ever before,” the report said.

“90 per cent of the world’s data has been created in the last two years –using this data effectively is the next step forward.”