Australian bank introduces ID verification with selfie biometrics to fight fraud

Selfie biometrics are coming to National Australia Bank (NAB), one of the country’s largest financial institutions. Facial matching tech for identity verification will be implemented for new customers as of September 2025. According to 9 News, the move is intended to curb identity fraud, which impacts more than 255,000 Australians a year.

An explainer on the NAB website says “providing a selfie is now central to how new customers will join NAB when they open a product or account. It’s part of our ongoing commitment to tackle fraud and scams and designed to help reduce the impact of crime stemming from identity theft.” The bank names opening fraudulent accounts and applying for fraudulent credit cards among the crimes that can stem from identity theft.

The selfie system matches face biometrics to a scanned identity document, such as a driver’s license or passport.

NAB Executive, Group Investigations Chris Sheehan says scams says the introduction of selfie-based identity verification is “about making sure the person opening the account is who they say they are – and stopping fraud at the front door.”

The system is not mandatory; the bank says “for those who can’t or don’t want to use the digital process there’ll continue to be other options available.”

The move is part of a broader effort in Australia to crack down on fraud and scams, which for NAB also includes eliminating links from text messages, introducing payment alerts to digital banking, and “blocking transactions to some cryptocurrency platforms where we have detected higher prevalence of scams.”

“Stopping scams takes a whole-of-ecosystem response,” said NAB Executive Group Investigations Chris Sheehan. “We’re helping Australians understand the red flags they need to look out for and working closely with other Banks, telcos, digital platforms, government to stop the crime in the first place.”

Australia has been in a tussle with fraudsters for several years. In 2023, its banks collaborated on the Scam Safe Accord, a “new offensive in the war on scams,” which aimed to introduce obligatory biometric checks for the opening of new accounts – as NAB has now done.

In 2024, five of Australia’s largest banks (NAB, ANZ, CBA, Suncorp Bank and Westpac) launched the BioCatch Trust Network, “the world’s first inter-bank, behavior-based, financial crime intelligence-sharing network.” The network enables instantaneous assessment of the trustworthiness of transactions and accounts, so transfers can be halted before any money changes hands.

This week, Macquarie Bank joined the network. In a press release, the bank’s Head of Client Protection David Sheehan says that “joining the Trust network was a natural next step in our broader scam prevention initiatives including real-time payment controls, behavioral biometrics and our standalone two-factor authentication app, Macquarie Authenticator.”

Article Topics

Australia  |  banking  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  face biometrics  |  financial services  |  fraud prevention  |  identity verification  |  selfie biometrics