One of Australia’s biggest banks, ANZ, has announced that it will be introducing voice recognition as a security measure within its smartphone banking apps sometime in the mid-year.
The new security measure will apply to transactions over $1,000. Currently, customers have to visit a physical branch or use internet banking to make transactions over $1,000, but with the introduction of voice biometrics to the bank’s goMoney app, users will be able to authorise these payments with their voice.
In a press release, ANZ Managing Director of Customer Experience Peter Dalton said that “a person’s voice has five to ten times as many security points than other methods such as fingerprints” and that “people are becoming more comfortable with using their voice to do basic commands on their devices”.
The technology is being developed in partnership with world-leading voiceprint and biometrics company Nuance, which is responsible for popular dictation software Dragon NaturallySpeaking as well as the Swype software keyboard available on Android and iOS. The technology is so accurate it apparently has the ability to tell the difference between the voices of identical twins.
