Keeping up with the time: what for do modern banks need biometrics

Ensuring high standards of service is a priority for banks. The key component of quality service in the banking sector has always been comprehensive security: from physical protection and safekeeping of funds to combating card and account fraud.
Security guarantees build a bank's reputation and increase client loyalty and trust. With the arrival of the digital age, the need for a reliable security tool has become particularly important for banks. Every year, the banking sector faces many new types of fraud, with financial losses sometimes running into tens of millions of dollars. Financial institutions are increasingly turning to facial biometrics to solve the problem. In recent years, biometric technology has become an irreplaceable assistant in the field of banking security. According to Research And Markets, the global market for biometric solutions for the banking industry was $4.4 billion USD in 2020. Experts predict that by 2026 this indicator will grow by more than two times: up to $8.9 billion. Taking advantage of the benefits of facial recognition technology, banks in turn are becoming an important driver of biometrics and are actively promoting its popularity among the public. The implementation of biometrics in banks began quite recently. However, the real turning point in the relationship between the financial sector and biometrics has been the pandemic with its trend towards remote service provision. Today, banks are among the top three consumers of biometric products in the world, behind only the public sector and migration control. Next we will consider the main challenges that biometrics poses to the banking sector and examine possible ways of solving them.
Contents
- Challenges
- Solutions
- Physical protection of bank offices and departments
- Protection of the perimeter of the department: Id-Guard
- Someone else will not pass: Id-Gate
- Information security and data protection: Id-Logon
- Biometrics in bank services
- Fast credits and biometric acquiring: Id-Check
- “Smart” queues and a personalised approach: Id-Line
- “Biometric” ATMs: a future without plastic cards
Challenges
- To improve remote banking security and provide password-free access to Internet banking;
- To improve the quality of client verification in loan disbursement;
- To improve the quality and speed of client service at bank offices by routing queues and providing prompt information about the client;
- Providing additional security for banking transactions: transactions, cash withdrawals, access to deposit boxes, etc.;
- Secure access to transactions through ATMs, cash withdrawals and payments using facial recognition;
- Physical protection of offices and bank branches, countering security incidents;
- Access control and prevention of unauthorised access to bank premises;
- Control of employees' activities and recording of their working hours.
Solutions
Today, facial biometrics can solve absolutely all of the listed challenges on both the internal security and client service sides. How does it work? Let's explore with examples of the use of ready-made biometric products from RecFaces.
Physical protection of bank offices and departments
Protection of the perimeter of the department: Id-Guard
Ready-made biometric solution Id-Guard allows to extend any video surveillance system with biometric functions using face identification in a video stream. “Smart” cameras installed in bank departments or offices can identify all people in the premises in real time. By detecting a stop-list person, potential fraudster or robber, the system automatically notifies security staff via SMS, push notification in the app or by email. This increases the response time of the security personnel and allows them to prevent possible incidents in time. Id-Guard can also be used to investigate incidents in hot pursuit as well as after a certain period of time. The software solution includes a biometric archive for this purpose. Upload a picture of the criminal to the system or draw a verbal portrait and in 10 seconds you can get all the information about his movements around the bank building. The data can easily be ranked by date, time or surveillance area.
Someone else will not pass: Id-Gate
Another important task in the physical security of banks is access control. Both employees in the office and customers in bank offices and departments. Biometric identification can be used for both scenarios. The ready-made biometric solution Id-Gate allows you to complete the functionality of classic access control systems with facial recognition technology. In office departments, biometrics becomes an effective and reliable replacement for RFID cards. The technology prevents the transfer of cards from an employee to an employee or a third party, as well as the passage of several people with one card. A person's biometric data cannot be faked or transmitted and therefore the possibility of unauthorised persons entering the bank's premises is reduced to zero. In conjunction with video surveillance camera Id-Gate can be used to prevent the passage of several persons with a single card or as a virtual access control point in places where for various reasons it is impossible to install an additional turnstile or door with ACS. The software solution also provides a flexible system of temporary biometric “passes” for visitors. For example, for employees of other financial institutions, collectors, etc.
Information security and data protection: Id-Logon
Information security in modern banks is as important as physical security. With the spread of digitalisation, information systems are becoming the main focus of attacks on the financial sector. Id-Logon software solution provides biometric access rights authentication in the bank's information and operating systems. The use of face recognition technology completely eliminates the risks of intrusion into the bank's information resources and data leaks. When important banking operations are performed, such as large cash transfers, multi-factor verification is also applied: biometrics + password or PIN-code. The system allows you to monitor the employee's attendance at the workplace. The verification is done in the background mode: if the absence of a person is detected, the system automatically locks the device. Id-Logon usage scenarios can be easily adjusted to solve specific tasks of the bank or its individual departments. Thus, it is possible to differentiate access rights to different corporate information resources depending on the position of a particular employee. Or set a prohibition for several people to work on the same computer. If the selected action scenario is violated, the system will immediately notify the security service.
Biometrics in bank services
Fast credits and biometric acquiring: Id-Check
Id-Check software solution is a multifunctional tool for biometric confirmation of a bank client's identity. Its main advantage is universality: the software solution can be used for face-to-face service at a bank or insurance company office, in mobile applications, for remote service, including remote bank card processing and credit granting. It is also possible to integrate Id-Check with passport recognition system Regula. Thus, facial verification can be combined with the verification of client passport data. Biometric identification plays a special role in the processing of credit. Credit to individuals is the basis of most banks' activities. The number of applicants increases every year. Manual checking of applications slows down the speed of decision-making. And slow service is what annoys clients the most. This problem can only be solved by automation of checks. This includes the use of facial recognition technology. In addition, checking applications manually raises the issue of the “human factor”. Working with a large number of documents, an employee sooner or later loses concentration and starts to make mistakes: the credibility of the verification results is called into question. In applying for a credit, a bank employee simply takes a picture of the person and their passport and then uploads the information into the system. A series of five automatic checks are then triggered, each of which is as fast as 5 minutes of a operationalist's time. It takes less than a minute to authenticate a client's identity from a photo or passport, and it takes less than 10 seconds to search for a person in the database. A person's face is simultaneously compared with photographs of clients from the bank's database, the photograph on the presented passport and images of people from the database of non-payers, fraudsters and other offenders. The similarly complex verification of the passport data of the applicant is carried out. Biometrics performs another important function in the granting of credit: it prevents fraud or conspiracy on the part of the bank employees. Verification based on facial recognition technology eliminates the possibility of granting credit to “third parties” using lost or stolen passports. In the case of any irregularity or attempted fraud, the system automatically sends a notification to the bank's security service. Id-Check is also used for remote client service: via mobile internet banking applications and for remote credit card processing by new users. Every year, people are less and less interested in spending time on personal visits to the bank. That is why remote banking is now an absolute must have for most financial organisations. However, for banks, this method of operation involves a number of serious risks, which can be minimised by biometric identification. Biometrics also protects clients. So, Id-Check has a Liveness control algorithm to combat biometric data forgery. It allows making sure that a real person, not a photo, is actually being identified.
“Smart” queues and a personalised approach: Id-Line
Id-Line is an ready-made software product that extends the capabilities of the electronic queue terminal using biometric identification. While a client receives a ticket at the terminal, a camera installed on the equipment scans his face. Then the system compares the person's biometric data with the database of client profiles. What are the benefits of this verification? Firstly, it accelerates and simplifies the work operationalist. The system integrated with the bank's CRM system in real time connects the personal data of the person, the service required and the number of the ticket. At the moment the person calls out of the queue, the operator automatically opens the necessary client card which is immediately checked against the biometric data of the person and the document he submits. Secondly, Id-Line allows personalising the service. Usually, self-service kiosks create a queue order depending on the type of service. Biometrics, on the other hand, allows prioritising services according to the type of client. For example, if a person's profile falls into the VIP or corporate client category. Thirdly, the biometric product performs additional verification of the identity of visitors against lists of violators. Importantly, the camera on the terminal is able to “capture” a person's face, even if they are still in the queue at the kiosk.
“Biometric” ATMs: a future without plastic cards
Another important vector of biometric technology application in the banking sector is the introduction of facial recognition technology into the operation of ATMs. The Id-ATM software product allows access to cash withdrawal/acceptance and other bank transactions via ATM based on biometric face identification, in this case there is no need to use a plastic card. To access the bank account transactions, the client goes through a two-factor verification procedure. First of all, the client must enter their personal bank ID or the phone number linked to the account. Then the client receives an SMS with a dynamically generated code, and the verification procedure starts. Identity verification is carried out via facial biometrics, using a camera installed on the ATM. The verification process takes no more than 1.5 seconds, and if the face of the person in front of the ATM does not match the photo of the account owner, the bank's security service will be notified within 5 seconds. If there is a suspicion of fraud or if a person from the stop-list appears at the ATM, access to card transactions can be automatically blocked. To combat the compromise, the device uses infrared and 3D cameras, as well as the liveness algorithm built into the software. This algorithm makes sure that there is a live person in front of the ATM, not an image of him on paper or the screen of a gadget. Moreover, Id-ATM offers the possibility to set different access levels to the account balance and transactions, depending on the type of identification. For example, one limit for cash withdrawal can be set for telephone number and face biometrics, and another for face + bank card access. A biometric solution improves recognition accuracy, minimising the chance of unauthorised access to accounts. At the same time, “biometric” ATMs will increase the level of comfort for bank clients by eliminating the need to carry a physical card, and will allow banks to optimise the cost of plastic card issuance in the long term. The financial sector is now one of the most prospective areas for the introduction of facial biometrics. Facial recognition technology allows to solve a wide range of tasks in the banking sector and fully satisfies its key objective, which is to improve the security and quality of client service. The introduction of biometrics brings the physical and information security of banks to a fundamentally new level, helps eliminate possible abuse by employees, personalize and accelerate service, and provide customers with reliable and fast access to remote services. Finished biometric products make facial recognition technology a competitive advantage for banking business. Easy to install and easy to use, they are cost and time efficient. Learn more about RecFaces' ready-made biometric solutions and how they can be used in the financial industry at our training courses and webinars.