Banking security might be about to get a lot more personal following the launch of a new service by one of Europe’s leading banks.
Dutch bank ING Netherlands has updated its mobile app to include voice-activated functions, meaning users can unlock their account using just a few vocal commands.
Using ‘voice biometrics’ technology provided by American firm Nuance, customers using iOS and Android devices can now also check their balance and issue payments without ever needing to enter a PIN number.
Any malicious attempts to hack into a user’s account is also stored for future reference in an attempt to crack down on criminals.
“Thanks in part to the inclusion of biometric applications, we are able to make banking faster, smoother and easier for our customers and improve access,” said Jeroen Losekoot, Internet & mobile marketing manager at ING. “This allows them to have greater control over their finances.”
Customers with devices that are unable to use voice biometrics will also be able to use other forms of biometric technology, such as fingerprint scanning, to access their accounts, as Inge is able to deal with this data as well.
“By becoming the first bank in the Netherlands to incorporate voice biometrics into the mobile banking app, ING Netherlands is leading the charge in innovation by utilising an effective solution that is natural and intuitive,” said Robert Weideman, executive vice president and general manager for the Enterprise Division of Nuance. “Customers can now bank in a seamless and convenient way by using the sound of their voice from start to finish in the mobile app.”
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For bringing down security?
Whether face, iris, fingerprint, typing, gesture, heartbeat or brainwave, biometric authentication could be a candidate for displacing the password if/when (only if/when) it has stopped depending on a password to be registered in case of false rejection while keeping the near-zero false acceptance.
Threats that can be thwarted by biometric products operated together with fallback/backup passwords can be thwarted more securely by passwords alone. We could be certain that biometrics would help for better security only when it is operated together with another factor by AND/Conjunction (we need to go through both of the two), not when operated with another factor by OR/Disjunction (we need only to go through either one of the two) as in the cases of Touch ID and many other biometric products on the market that require a backup/fallback password, which only increase the convenience by bringing down the security.
In short, biometric solutions could be recommended to the people who want convenience but should not be recommended to those who need security. It may be interesting to have a quick look at a slide titled “PASSWORD-DEPENDENT PASSWORD-KILLER” shown at
http://www.slideshare.net/HitoshiKokumai/password-dependent-passwordkiller-46151802