Current Filter: >>>>>>

   

By simply scanning their finger, customers will be able to easily access their online bank accounts and authorise payments within seconds, without the need for PIN, passwords or authentication codes.

The pioneering technology will be initially available to Barclays' corporate banking clients from this year. The compact device can read and verify the users' unique vein patterns in the finger, helping to combat identity fraud experienced by UK businesses.

DIFFICULT TO SPOOF
Hitachi's VeinID is recognised as one of the most secure biometrics in the market. Unlike fingerprints, vein patterns are extremely difficult to spoof or replicate. The scanned finger must be attached to a live human body, in order for the veins in the finger to be authenticated. Barclays will not hold the user's vein pattern and there will be no public record of it.

Hitachi's VeinID is already used by banks for password replacement, single sign-on and ATM machines, in Japan, North America and Europe. However, the combination of vein biometric and highly secure digital signature technology in the Barclays Biometric Reader is a first for the global financial sector. There is future potential for it to be introduced more widely in UK branch networks, bringing this powerful technology to millions of consumers.

The launch of the Barclays Biometric Reader follows on from the bank's successful introduction of voice biometrics for its Barclays Wealth customers to identify themselves on phone calls, removing the need for passwords or security questions.

"This solution is at the leading edge of innovation and is in direct response to client concerns about the threat of online fraud while making our customers' lives easier through its convenience," says Ashok Vaswani, CEO Barclays Personal and Corporate Banking. "We have shown the technology to a range of businesses, and the interest and enthusiasm for the product is tremendous. The technology has also been tested by Hitachi for many years and it will be game-changing for UK businesses and consumers.

"Ultimately, I hope this will pave the way for other institutions to adopt equally robust technology in the fight against online crime."

SOARING USER BASE
Meanwhile, the number of global biometrics smartphone users is expected to reach 471.11 million in 2017 from 43.23 million in 2013, according to global research analysts Frost & Sullivan. During this period, the user base would have transitioned from the early adopter phase to the early maturity phase, it reports, giving biometrics technology the opportunity to outstrip existing technologies such as two-factor authentication (2FA). By 2019, biometrics will be a mature technology and would have naturally migrated to mobile devices.

The findings are part of Frost & Sullivan's 'Biometrics Go Mobile: A Market Overview', which states that the biometric revenue from smart phones is expected to increase from $53.6 million in 2313 to $396.2 million in 2019, at a compound annual growth rate of 39.6%.

"Due to existing hardware capabilities across devices, most of the growth is expected from facial and voice authentication technologies," says Frost & Sullivan ICT global programme director Jean-Noël Georges. "While the uptake of biometric technologies will get a boost from the proliferation of new devices with fingerprint authentication capability, their acceptance will be tepid until the market develops more sophisticated and accurate authentication software."

Page   1  2