This article in Finder.com highlights the growing use of voice authentication by Australian banks:
“In a nutshell, voice biometrics is a way of using an individual’s voice to verify their identity. In September 2017, ANZ was the first Australian bank to launch voice biometrics for mobile banking, developed by Nuance. The technology enables ANZ customers to authorise mobile transactions over $1000 using just their voice.
In recent weeks we’ve seen many Australian banks jump on the voice bandwagon, recognising it as an extremely user-friendly tool for consumers when checking their bank balance or logging into their account.“
Missing in this article is recognition that multi-factor authentication is what we need to embrace as quickly as possible. Nuance states that it is working on this, but it could certainly move quicker if it partnered with a behavioral biometrics supplier that has product in market today:
“Schwarz is confident that we’ll see more banks incorporate voice biometrics into their platforms throughout the year. Plus, the software will continue to advance. Nuance is working on developing a range of additional security steps to complement its voice biometric technology, such as analysing a person’s location and device.
“So if I am calling from an iPhone 10, I expect an iPhone 10. Looking at where do you expect that person to be calling from and making sure there’s a correlation there.”
Nuance is even looking at how the software can analyse a person’s behaviour and how they act with their phone or computer. “The way that you either work on your laptop or the way that you navigate using your mobile phone or an iPad is actually quite individual… how you type, how you swipe the screen. We all tend to have little idiosyncrasies around how we interact with our devices,” he said.
“It’s very natural for people to want to talk, and they’re getting used to it again. So I would expect we’d see further rollout of voice biometrics as an authentication process with other banks throughout 2018.””
Mercator has indicated the need for multi-factor authentication in its publication “Behavioral Biometrics Will Restructure the Authentication Landscape in the Next 5–8 Years” and identified that competition is heating up now that Visa has entered the authentication market in the report “Authentication Market Shake-up as Visa Enters the Market.” It’s clear that biometrics and behavioral biometrics will play a critical role in authenticating people in the near future but who the key solutions providers will be remains to be seen.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
Read the quoted story here