It’s been an interesting week for those interested in Financial Services and how biometrics could be used in the industry. Looking at Barclays’s use of Nuance and Cisco Voice Portal and some of the industry other trends. One major trend was in the story “ US Bank trials voice biometric access to mobile app ”. The move towards apps and mobile is creating some very significant changes in the nature of authentication and security.

The traditional use of voice biometrics has been to authenticate callers who have dialed in over a land-line to contact centers. Biometrics have been seen as specific to the voice channel, expensive but potentially more secure for ID&V (as it checks who you are, not what you know) and potentially offering better customer service (as voice can allow more flexible menus than the traditional “….press 1 for…., press 2 for….” functionality of IVR).

Mobile devices have changed this paradigm in a couple of ways. First, mobile voice tends to be a much lower quality than land line. Although this can be compensated for, in general terms the lower quality the input, the harder it is to use voice patterns to authenticate an individual.

Voice biometric authentication can still be effective for mobile users but it does mean that a higher number of calls will need to be handed off[…]