A quick glance in the mobile phone camera rather than the tiresome entry of a PIN code: as UBS now confirms to finews.com for the first time, it’s working on a biometric recognition pilot project.
Staff at Veridium are over the moon at a newly-struck partnership deal: the company is working on building a software recognition system for a globally active Swiss bank, according to the American technology firm with operations in the U.K., the Netherlands and Romania.
finews.ch has learned the reason for the jubilation: The Swiss bank in question is no other than UBS, the country’s largest financial institution and the biggest private bank in the world. The experiments with biometric recognition are being worked on in London by the bank’s IT experts.
Passwords Becoming Obsolete
UBS confirmed the cooperation with Veridium, stressing at the same time that it was still a pilot project. Veridium, led by former HSBC banker James Stickland, will be taking on a huge challenge.
Regardless of this, the software being tested offers significant potential for digital banking, which UBS is also promoting in Switzerland. The use of biometric data would render passwords, tokens and so-called swipe cards obsolete for accessing online banking services. Instead Veridium’s mobile phone applications will allow identification via face and fingerprint recognition (see video below).
The use of smart phones for banking, which is becoming increasingly important, promises real time-saving benefits. And also, according to providers of biometric controls, better security. Applications are thus equally neutral for clients as well as for internal staff.
Avatar Recognizes Client Advisers
UBS wants to utilize this potential and has already initiated a number of pilot projects which rely on biometric recognition. Like for instance a digital adviser, who can literally lip read a customers’ wishes. UBS Companion, an intelligent advisory software currently being tested, makes use of this technology.
Thus the software recognizes the responsible client adviser, and greets him by name, as finews.com was able to observe at a recent presentation.
