Banks in China testing facial micro-expression detection for fraud reduction

Chinese financial services provider Ping An has created a technology for detecting users’ involuntary micro-expressions with smartphone cameras to determine their truthfulness, PYMNTS reports.

Citing a report in the Financial Times, PYMNTS writes that Chinese banks are concerned that customers are lying about why they are applying for loans.

Standard Chartered bank Chief Information Officer Kee Sun-Tuan told the Financial Times that his institution is also testing the technology. He said the technology “acts like a lie-detector, using the camera in a phone to check people’s responses to questions and scan their facial movements.” Micro-expression detection could enable Standard Chartered to better assess the risk of remote loan applications to extend its reach to locations unserved by physical branches.

Ping An’s technology detects 54 brief face movements to supplement its other fraud-detection tools.

“We use micro expression recognition technology to review loan applications. It captures subtle changes in customers’ facial expressions which help to identify and warn against fraud risks,” Ping An Deputy Chief Executive Lee Yuan Siong told the FT. “We’ve reduced credit losses by 60 percent using this technology. It is more accurate than other approaches to fraud detection.”

If it proves successful for banks, perhaps the technology could one day be applied to detect dishonest testimony to China’s new facial recognition-powered “internet court”.

Article Topics

banking  |  biometrics  |  China  |  face detection  |  fraud prevention  |  PING AN Tech