HSBC has come up with a better idea of protecting their customer's account from being hacked. Account owners will now use their fingerprints or voices instead of using passwords to access their accounts. The bank introduced biometric tests that will enable their customers to do online banking with the use of their voice or fingerprints.
For the fingerprint access, the plan works well with Apple's Touch ID fingerprint scanner. Customers can scan their fingerprint to validate that the account they are going to access are theirs.
Alternately, they can also use their voice in accessing their accounts. A recorded 'voice print' will be examined by the bank to learn how they speak. Afterwards, the customers need to read out a phrase from their phone to gain access, according to Business Insider.
Touch ID is presently accessible for both first direct and HSBC on all Apple mobile smart devices. Customers need first to download the mobile banking app and follow the procedure on how to link their fingerprints to it. After registering their 'voice print', account owners no longer have to memorize their present PIN or telephone security password letters.
Nuance Communications Inc. supplies the biometrics technology for the voice that cross-check 100 unique identifiers which enclose both behavioral features like the pace, rhythm and pronunciation, and physical aspects that include nasal passages, vocal tract and larynx, Mail Online reports.
According to a poll released by YouGov, 38% of Britons have the tendency to use the same password to almost all of their online accounts while 55% seldom update their passwords. Among the 2,038 adults that were questioned, 78% were certain that their body would be uniquely enough to become a password while 74% felt that in the future it will be the default password to be utilized.
"This gets rid of the much-maligned passwords to replace them with something more secure - you don't have to remember where you lived when you were five, or your inside leg measurement," said the bank's head of customer contact, Joe Gordon (via The Telegraph.) "It takes more than 100 different measurements, so for most people even with a cold, the vocal tract doesn't change, and behavioural factors such as the speed of speech, their accent and pronunciation are still there.", as reported on the Daily News.
The new scheme will be introduced this summer enabling 15 million customers to take advantage of the new features. In this way, they could protect their accounts and themselves as well from identity theft and hackers.
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