Santander Becomes Latest Big Bank to Deploy Nuance Voice Biometrics Tech

“While the system is certainly convenient for customers, it’s also delivers considerable security to the organization deploying it…”

Santander is upgrading the security and convenience of its phone banking services thanks to biometric technology from Nuance Communications.

The Spain-based bank has become the latest financial institution to implement voice recognition in its call center, allowing customers to easily confirm their identities during calls by saying a brief passphrase aloud. All that’s required is for participating customers to repeat that short phrase multiple times during the enrollment process, just as one scans a finger several times when registering a fingerprint on a new smartphone.

While the system is certainly convenient for customers, it’s also delivers considerable security to the organization deploying it, with Nuance’s voice biometrics technology designed to assess over a hundred different characteristics of each registered voice.

In deploying the solution to its UK contact center, Santander has joined a long line of prominent banks that have implemented Nuance’s voice recognition solution, including Allied Irish Banks, ICICI Bank, HSBC, and Royal Bank of Scotland, as well as smaller firms like Kennebunk Savings community bank in Maine, which recently signed on for the service. Commenting on the trend in a statement, Nuance Enterprise Security Business General Manager Brett Beranek said that “more and more organizations are deploying biometrics to enable a simpler and safer way for customers to validate their identities and access services,” adding, “We are proud to see Santander leveraging Nuance technology to safeguard financial and personal information in today’s digital society.”

–

May 2, 2019 – by Alex Perala