Banks roll out voice recognition to facilitate authentication process for phone banking

A new measure introduced by some private banks makes the process of authentication adopted for phone banking much easier for users. In what will come as a major relief for users who frequently use phone banking, banks have now introduced a voice recognition process which acts as a quicker way of authentication. The development could come in handy for customers in an emergency to report loss or theft

of the card. The voice recognition has already been rolled out by various banks including ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and a few others. With the ease of authentication process, ICICI bank has already got 3 million customers on board and the bank is focussing to add another-million by the year end. “First you type in your account or card number, then your T-PIN or date of birth, followed by the expiry date or CVV on your debit card. It is long, cumbersome and expensive for both Indian and NRI customers on international calls,” says ICICI Bank executive director Rajiv Sabharwal. “Each person has their own speech pattern and we capture seven metrics like inflection, speed, tone and modulation for our voice recognition database,” Sabharwal added. Sabharwal also says that it is as easy as taking finger prints and a person voice is even more unique as compared to his/her fingerprints.

Where as, on the other side Kotak Mahindra Bank is planning to take the facility of voice recognition for financial inclusion to rural areas in regional languages.

“We don't want to innovate for the sake of innovation. Financial inclusion is always at the front of our technological advances," says Kotak Mahindra's head of digital initiatives Deepak Sharma.

According to the  data security experts, voice recognition alone does not provide protection.

A security professional told TOI, “Banks need to have systems that are smart enough to challenge the user, and not stop at voice recognition. Voice is a relatively cheap option for banks compared with iris recognition or biometrics that require a special device. Voice is only effective when it is used along with other security measures.”

Banks roll out voice recognition to facilitate authentication process for phone banking