Banks Looking to Biometrics for Improved Customer Security

I saw a LinkedIn message to one of the biometrics groups in which I’m a member linking to a new video on biometrics:

I was quite surprised to see that I am actually in it!

It’s a great topic…Banks turning to biometrics. The video doesn’t talk too much about what’s really happening and why, so I’ll blog about a few salient points, worthy of understanding:

1)    Passwords are on their deathbed. This is old news and everyone gets it, but worthy of repeating. Too easy to crack and/or too hard to remember

2)    Mobile is everything, and mobile biometrics will be the entry point. Our mobile phones will be the tools to control and open a variety of things. Our phones will know who we are and keep track of the probability of that changing as we use them. Mobile banking apps will be accessed through biometrics and that will allow us to not only check balances, but pay or send money or speed ATM transactions.

3)    EMV credit cards are here…Biometric credit confirmation is next! Did you get a smart card from your bank? Europay, Visa, and MasterCard decided to improve fraud by shifting fraud risk based on security implemented. Smart cards are now, biometrics will be added to aid fraud prevention.

4)    It’s all about convenience & security. So much focus has been on security that convenience was often overlooked. There was a perception that you can’t have both! With Biometrics you actually can have an extremely fast and convenient solution that is highly accurate.

5)    Layered biometrics will rule. Any one biometric or authentication approach in isolation will fail. The key is to layer a variety of authentication techniques that enhance the systems security but don’t hurt convenience. Voice and face authentication can be used together, passwords can be thrown on top if the biometric confirmation is unsure, tokens or fingerprint or iris scans can also be deployed if the security isn’t high enough. The key is knowing the accuracy of match and increasing the security to the desired security level in a stepped function so as to maximize user convenience.