HSBC to offer new voice/fingerprint ID system

gt94sss2

HSBC is rolling out voice recognition services for 15 million customers by the summer in a big step towards biometric banking in the UK.

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”.

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.

Customers who opt into the service will provide a voice print to the bank, which analyses the speed at which they talk as well as their cadence and pronunciation, which the bank says provides 100 “signifiers” that mark the customer out as a unique individual.

From then on, customers should be able to access the account by reading a set phrase, such as “my voice is my password” or by reading their account number and date of birth, rather than giving passwords

More coverage:

BBC
Telegraph
Guardian

Of course, TouchID is nothing new and already offered by HSBC and others but this voice thing seems new (though it looks as if Barclays has used something similar on a smaller scale)

Regards
Sunil

Doctor_Duke

Sounds interesting as let's face it HSBC apps security is pretty clunky at present and anything that improves that can only be a good thing!

Archi_Bald

I notice they haven't mentioned M&S Bank, whose online security is even more ancient than that of HSBC & FD.

Doctor_Duke

Fully agree. M&S Bank online/app are a joke! Definitely the poor relation in the HSBC family!

GingerBob_3

Solution looking for a problem.

Dan83

What happens if your unwell and you voice changes?

gt94sss2

Dan83 wrote: »

What happens if your unwell and you voice changes?

According to the media coverage the system still works then.

The bank says the system will still work when someone is ill. "We will be able to cope with people who have got colds or slight impediments," Joe Gordon, UK head of customer contact at HSBC, told the BBC.

"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."

Generally imo HSBC are more security concious than the other banks - hence their refusal to use the same keypad system as everyone else - in favour of a more secure two factor authentication solution for online banking.

So I imagine they believe that this is more secure and easier to use than the systems it replaces..

Doctor_Duke

gt94sss2 wrote: »

So I imagine they believe that this is more secure and easier to use than the systems it replaces..

We can only live in hope......:D

Anthorn

I'm tempted but I'm holding out for a Lloyds Bank switching incentive. If they follow in the footsteps of Halifax I'll be switching. It's a horsey thing