Australian banks implement biometrics for mobile banking

Australian financial institution St George Bank announced it has implemented fingerprint login for its mobile banking service, according to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald.

In addition, competing bank ANZ said it would soon be offering voice recognition login.

St George’s TouchID functionality will be offered for the iPhone 5S with the expected September release of iOS8, as well on the Galaxy 5 later this year.

According to CIO Dhiren Kulkarni, St George Bank will not store its customers’ fingerprint data on its databases, but instead it will use Apple’s application interface to link its mobile banking app with the fingerprint identification service that is offered on the iPhone 5S.

St George is one of the first global banks to offer internet banking, mobile banking apps, and support for wearables, which includes a Google Glass banking app once the device is released locally.

And while ANZ has been testing out different types of biometric authentication, its planned roll out of voice authentication technology will likely be its first actual deployment, said ANZ Australia CEO Phil Chronican.

He added that although many customers are still reluctant to some biometrics such as retina scans and fingerprints, the company’s research shows that customers are willing to use voice recognition as verification at their banks.

A Deloitte’s Centre for Financial Services survey published in May found that 63 per cent of respondents considered biometrics valuable in general, while few of them trusted the technology as a payments enabler.

Article Topics

Apple  |  Australia  |  banking  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint  |  mobile  |  voice recognition