Crown Agents Bank has today launched a biometric authentication pension solution, EMpower Pensions, facilitating secure, end-to-end pensions management, as well as domestic and international pension payroll, from a single digital platform.
EMpower Pensions streamlines the pensioner’s proof of life checking experience, by allowing them to upload an image of their identification and capture a live facial photo selfie, from the comfort of their own home.
For remote proof of life authentication, the solution deploys artificial intelligence (AI)-based biometric facial recognition technology to compare users’ facial biometrics against their identity document photograph – generating scores for validity and facial similarity.
This enables pension administrators to efficiently verify that pension payments are being delivered to entitled beneficiaries, while also mitigating fraud and overpayments issues.
This service follows the launch of Empower Payments, a payments gateway for cross-border transactions into emerging markets in March 2021.
Colin Digby, head of non-bank financial institutions at Crown Agents Bank highlights that this launch is the next step in their digital transformation. “We are creating more innovative ways of automating financial services to reduce processing costs and time – benefits that we are delighted can be passed on to our pension customers,” Digby says.