Standard Chartered Bank is rolling out fingerprint and voice ID technology across Asia, Africa and the Middle east, reaching a potential pool of five million customers.
The bank says clients in 15 markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East will soon be able to access account balances, cards and investments on smartphones and iPads using Apple's TouchID fingerprint recognition technology. It will also be enabled on Samsung Android devices with fingerprint sensors.
Already live in Singapore, the UAE and India, touch login will launch in China, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, Pakistan and the African markets of Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe by the end of 2016.
The bank will also introduce voice biometric technology for phone banking services for clients in India and the UAE by end of this year, before rolling it out in more markets next year. In July, the Bank announced the roll out of videobanking in nine markets by end of 2016 (Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan, Kenya and the UAE).
Karen Fawcett, Standard Chartered’s CEO of retail banking, says: “Fingerprint and voice biometric technologies give our clients more convenience and security when they want to access their bank balances, cards and investments, wherever they are and whenever they want. We’re bringing the latest digital technologies to all our markets so that we can offer easy, convenient and secure banking to our clients.”
In May, Standard Chartered announced the introduction of a new mobile and online banking service to serve one million clients across eight African markets as part of a three-year $1.5 billion commitment to a digital future.
Standard Chartered's investment in biometrics is the latest in a slew of announcements from banks large and small seeking to streamline remote access to financial services and eliminate the hassle of remembering multiple PINs and passwords.
Just this weekend, Commercial Bank of Qatar introduced technology from 01 Systems to implement finger vein scanners at bank branches and ATMs, enabling customers to access their accounts without need for a bank card or PIN number.
The technology maps the internal vein system within a finger, and will only accept a living finger.
The technology incorporates finger vein devices from mofiria Corporation, a biometrics hardware manufacturer coupled with 01 Systems biometric servers. It is being implemented on ATMs from NCR Corporation.