Cake Digital Bank has become the first digital-only bank in Southeast Asia to achieve ISO/IEC 30107-3 Level 2 certification from iBeta for its facial biometric authentication system. The certified solution, Cake Face Authen, was developed entirely in-house by Vietnamese engineers and represents a major milestone for digital banking security in the region.
Biometric Certification and Spoof Detection
ISO/IEC 30107-3 Level 2 certification evaluates biometric systems against advanced presentation attacks. During testing, Cake’s facial recognition technology successfully defended against high-complexity spoofing attempts, including 3D-printed masks, resin masks, and latex masks. The system recorded a perfect score, achieving zero percent in both Attack Presentation Classification Error Rate (APCER) and Bona Fide Presentation Classification Error Rate (BPCER).
Cake Face Authen uses passive liveness detection to verify users without requiring gestures such as blinking or head movements. This provides a seamless experience during sensitive activities like account registration or high-value transaction approvals. The system is currently used by more than 15 million people in Vietnam, reflecting a broad deployment of high-assurance biometric technology at scale.
The certification aligns with increasingly strict security mandates from the State Bank of Vietnam, which since July 2024 has required financial institutions to implement end-to-end biometric verification for digital transactions. Cake’s compliance with this regulation demonstrates its commitment to secure, regulation-aligned innovation.
Wider Digital Transformation and Technology Stack
Although Cake is the first digital-only bank in Southeast Asia to receive this certification, it is also one of just five BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) organizations in Vietnam to have achieved this level of biometric assurance. The bank is positioning itself as a leader in next-generation digital banking, leveraging a broad range of technologies to support security and user experience.
Cake employs more than 80 AI models across its operations, including customer support, fraud detection, and credit risk analysis. It also meets PCI DSS 4.0 Level 1 requirements for secure payment card processing and supports FIDO2 passwordless login for enhanced customer convenience.
To support scalability and infrastructure resilience, Cake partners with Futurex to secure its cloud payment HSM environment and utilizes Google Cloud’s AI tools to power backend intelligence. These strategic integrations underpin the high-performance security architecture required to maintain real-time authentication for millions of users.
The certification follows broader industry movement toward advanced biometric security. As other implementations of Level 2 liveness detection have shown, robust facial authentication is becoming a standard feature in digital finance. Meanwhile, emerging standards to counter biometric injection threats underscore the importance of forward-looking approaches like Cake’s.
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May 12, 2025 – by Ali Nassar-Smith
