FB pixel

Barclays using biometric technologies to “completely automate” branch operations

| Stephen Mayhew
Categories Access Control  |  Biometrics News  |  Commercial Applications  |  Consumer Electronics  |  Financial Services  |  Voice Biometrics
 

Ashok Vaswani, CEO of retail and business banking at Barclays, said the British bank is currently developing new ways to “completely automate” as much of its branch operations as it can, according to a report by Express.

Speaking at a banking conference, Vaswani confirmed that 72 of Barclay’s branches now offer next generation cash machines developed by Barclays and German manufacturer Wincor Nixdorf.

The technology has allowed the bank to significantly reduce its staff, with more job cuts to occur in the future as a result of increased automation and the rapid growth of online and mobile banking.

Barclays said that by the first quarter of 2016, more than half of its 1,500-branch network should have new machines installed.

“Because of things like this we have been able to -reduce our FTE [full-time equivalents] in the branch network by 1,300 folks -already,” said Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays.

“So the more we can get it done hopefully you will see pretty significant FTE reductions in our physical footprint.”

The newly refitted branches are staffed with cashiers who have been retrained as “community -bankers” equipped with iPads to facilitate the automated process, answering any questions they might have about using the self-service machines.

The next generation ATMs allow customers to withdraw and pay in cash, as well as pay in cheques and bills, some by scanning the QR codes printed on their paper bills.

Barclays is also considering allowing customers to use make withdrawals using their smartphones, via the Barclays app to generate a QR code.

Over the past two years, Barclays has gone from having no mobile banking customers to 3.3 million, allowing the bank to cut down on operational costs, said Vaswani.

Previously reported, Barclays partnered with Hitachi Europe to launch its customer authentication solution, Barclays Biometric Reader, which is backed by Hitachi’s Finger Vein Authentication Technology, as well as rolling out a voice recognition system, provided by Nuance Communications.

Article Topics

 |   |   |   | 

Latest Biometrics News

 

Digital sovereignty, infrastructure and credential formats colliding

Digital credential formats are on the verge of being sucked into a global debate over the nature of sovereignty with…

 

Digital ID for alcohol sales is coming to the UK: hear what it means for the identity sector

For about two years now, leaders in the UK have been promising that, soon, people will be able to use…

 

Ant International, Visa, Mastercard work to make agentic protocols interoperable 

Ant International, Mastercard and Visa are collaborating on a Know-Your-Agent (KYA) interoperability framework, which a release says is “designed to…

 

Unico acquires biometrics provider Valida, gaining entry into Argentina market

Unico has announced it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Valida, “an Argentine biometric identity verification platform with an established…

 

KPMG investment in Reality Defender backs hiring spree to fight deepfakes

U.S.-based KPMG LLP has taken a minority stake in deepfake detection developer Reality Defender and plans to integrate its fraud-protecting…

 

Australia expands eSafety powers, doubles penalties in platform accountability push

Australia’s parliament has formally passed the Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026, granting…

Comments

19 Replies to “Barclays using biometric technologies to “completely automate” branch operations”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Continue Reading

Market Intelligence

Featured Company

Learn More

Biometric Update Podcast

Most Read This Week

White Papers

Latest Webinars

Biometrics Industry Events