HSBC is rolling out voice recognition and touch ID services for 15m customers by the summer – a big step towards biometric banking in the UK.
HSBC and first direct customers using telephone banking and the mobile app are being offered the chance to access their accounts with a voice and fingerprint verification system. The bank hopes the software will help tackle the issue of forgotten passwords.
Francesca McDonagh, HSBC UK’s head of retail banking and wealth management, described the move as “the largest planned rollout of voice biometric security technology in the UK”.
She said: “The launch of voice and touch ID makes it even quicker and easier for customers to access their bank account, using the most secure form of password technology – the body.”
Related: 2015: the year the fingerprint sensor stopped being a gimmick
\First direct will begin to enrol customers for voice ID in coming weeks and HSBC will follow by the summer. Customers who opt in will have to enrol their “voice print” and will no longer need to remember a telephone security password or PIN.
Barclays has also introduced voice recognition software for its wealthier clients.
Touch ID is available on all Apple mobile devices for both HSBC and first direct. Customers need to download the mobile banking app and follow the instructions to link their fingerprint to it.
Joe Gordon, UK head of customer contact at HSBC, said the voice recognition will still work if people have a cold. He told the BBC’s Today programme: “We will be able to cope with people who have got colds or slight impediments. Things such as the size of your mouth or your vocal tract don’t change. Neither do your cadence or your accent when you’ve got those little colds.”
Nuance Communications is supplying the voice biometrics technology which works by cross-checking against more than 100 unique identifiers including both behavioural features such as speed, cadence and pronunciation, and physical aspects including the shape of larynx, vocal tract and nasal passages.
Together with voice and touch, Britons believe heartbeats, head hair and even saliva could form the passwords of the future, according to a new YouGov poll cited by HSBC.
Related: Can you tell how tall someone is by the sound of their voice?
The poll shows 38% of people use the same password across most of their online accounts while 55% say they rarely update their passwords. It found that 78% of 2,038 adults questioned were confident their body is unique enough to be used as a password and that 74% felt this would become the default password of the future.
Tracy Garrad, chief executive of first direct, said that voices and fingerprints were unique, with physical and behavioural characteristics “almost impossible to mimic”.
She said: “While this is the largest rollout of voice ID in UK banking, other industries will soon follow our lead.”
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét