Santander introduces Phone ID and Voice ID for telephone banking customers
Santander customers will no longer need to remember and key in security numbers when accessing telephone banking, as the bank introduces voice and phone recognition technology.
Telephone banking customers will be offered the option of verifying their identity through technology which will recognise their voice and where they are calling from. Santander is doing a phased rollout of the service at the moment to customers.
It said any retail customer who requests access now will be able to use it, and by June all customers will be invited to use the service.
The bank is using Phone ID and biometric Voice ID technology to make the changes, which mean customers will no longer be required to key in any personal identity or security numbers when completing telephone authentication.
Phone ID technology enables Santander to identify an individual customer simply through the phone number they are calling from. Customers will need to call from a phone number that is uniquely registered to them, such as their mobile phone.
To gain access to their accounts, customers will then be able to complete the authentication process through biometric Voice ID security, which analyses over 100 characteristics of the voice.
Santander said the technology is sophisticated enough that it can even detect a recording of someone’s voice being played over the telephone.
Once customers have been authenticated, they can then state the reason for their call and be routed directly through to the relevant team, eliminating the need to key in an option.
More than 1.6 million HSBC customers across the UK already use similar voice ID technology, which launched by the bank in 2016.
HSBC recently said the technology has helped it to weed out fraudsters – and has prevented over £300 million falling into the hands of criminals since it launched in the UK.
Reza Attar-Zadeh, head of customer interactions, Santander UK, said:
“Our innovative combination of Phone ID and Voice ID gives our customers an incredibly simple and seamless way to authenticate themselves when calling us – removing the need to remember and key in numbers while ensuring the highest standards of security.
“The human voice contains over 100 voice characteristics we can use to ensure that a caller is who they say they are, further protecting our customers’ accounts from fraudsters.”
