Voice is as unique to an individual as the fingerprint, face and iris. While the fingerprint, face and iris capture requires special apparatus – often expensive – no such devices are required for voice authentication. This makes it simpler and cost-effective to create a verification system that can let the legitimate customer through and block the fraudsters from abusing an organisation’s systems and services.
Consider this simple scenario. A customer calls the bank or a service provider’s call center for a simple query. To balance the need for security, a set of standard questions are asked by the service provider to authenticate the caller. This puts the onus on the caller to prove his identity (who he says he is) by answering all the questions correctly. This requires a good memory to remember the PINs, passwords and random security questions. At the end of the authentication, all the customer wants is a trivial question to be answered – for example, how to make a credit card payment. How’s that for the slogan: “delighting customers through excellent service”. The whole authentication affair makes one wonder why all customers are treated with suspicion by the service providers.
The simple solution would be to just call up and ask for account details. But this would make it easier for fraudsters to abuse the system by making high-risk money transfers or obtaining credit in the guise of a legitimate customer. Therefore, it is imperative that strong risk controls need to be set to balance the interests of the service provider; at the same time delight the customer without complex authentication measures. While PINs and passwords can be remembered by a few (mostly educated), the vast majority – particularly in a country like India which has over 600 million people below the literacy threshold – would need a much simpler way to authenticate themselves – and often quickly. The simplest way is to let people’s voice be their password.
Imagine the same scenario as before. A customer calls a service provider and the customer is verified in about 20 seconds through normal conversation – perhaps while taking down the query from the customer to be served – in any language. Once verified, normal account interaction can proceed. If the verification fails, additional security measures can be added to mitigate the risk of fraud or abuse.
FRS Labs has developed “Atlas” – a cutting edge voice biometrics technology to solve the mundane issue of verifying customers using their own voice. It’s time to give your customers their true voice.
Talk to us today for a free pilot. Drop us a line to info@frslabs.com.
About the Author: Shankar is a certified fraud examiner and is the Founder and CEO of Fraud Risk and Security Research Labs. Shankar has over 18 years of experience in developing complex intelligence and fraud prevention systems for Telecoms, Financial Institutions and Governments.
