Buguroo behavioral biometrics fight bank fraud in ZA, HSBC Malaysia deploys Nuance voice biometrics

South Africa’s Puleng Technologies has partnered with buguroo to bring behavioral biometrics to the fight against bank fraud in South Africa, according to a company announcement.

Puleng will offer bugFraud, buguroo’s flagship continuous fraud detection solution, which takes in device signals, malware detection, and machine learning-based behavioral biometrics, to its banking clients in the region. buguroo says it is the only solution currently in the market that builds an individual biometric profile for every customer to boost the bank’s ability to prevent online fraud.

The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) found that digital bank fraud increased 75 percent in South Africa in 2018, and the increase in criminal incidents has continued in 2020, with a special focus on phishing campaigns related to COVID-19, the company says in the announcement.

“Puleng has a long history of helping banking organisations secure their infrastructures against an array of emerging threats,” says Tim Ayling, vice-president, buguroo. “Puleng’s deep expertise and local market knowledge will play a vital part as we introduce our innovative bugFraud solution to the South African market. Puleng’s dedication to understanding our technology – and how it can be applied in its customers’ environments – places us in a fantastic position to help reduce the impact of fraud in the country.”

Puleng Technologies CEO Muhammed Mayet notes that buguroo’s technology is widely deployed by leading banks in Europe and Latin America.

Behavioral biometrics are a necessary remedy to the spiking fraud rates in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic due to what buguroo calls the “bancarization” of the region in a blog post. The post begins by discussing the low adoption of bank accounts and digital financial services in Latin America.

The company suggests the same kind of process which has played out elsewhere, with fraud and digital banking progressing together, is happening in Latin America. The post cites a Mastercard study conducted by Americas Market Research that shows that more than half of consumers in the region now have a bank account, and half of those are conducting their banking online.

Voice biometrics launched in Malaysia

HSBC Malaysia has launched voice biometric authentication to provide its customers with fast and convenient account security while eliminating passwords and avoiding security questions, Fintech News Malaysia reports.

The bank’s Voice ID, which uses biometric voice recognition technology from Nuance, prompts customers to say “my voice is my password” to enroll and subsequently authenticate their identity. The enrollment process takes less than three minutes, according to the report.

Solus Connect and One-Tech partner for biometric MFA

Solus Connect has partnered with One-Tech to provide contactless digital payments through multi-factor authentication including unobtrusive biometrics and behavioral analysis.

According to the announcement, Solus Connect’s adaptive risk platform gives companies in different industries a suite of multi-factor authentication capabilities to strengthen online security and meet KYC requirements.

One-Tech CEO Alan Kwan states that opportunities for the partners extend beyond the Asia Pacific region to North and Central America where contactless payments are gaining traction. The partners will target the pharmaceutical, antiquities and building and hotel management industries, in addition to the banking sector.

Article Topics

banking  |  behavioral biometrics  |  biometrics  |  financial services  |  fraud prevention  |  identity verification  |  KYC  |  Latin America  |  Malaysia  |  Solus  |  South Africa  |  voice biometrics