Government regulations, coupled with the growth of identity fraud, are driving market awareness and the need for enhanced security, making features like speaker verification critical to institutions — and individuals — that are increasingly concerned about protecting their assets and account information. Intervoice Banking 4.0 is working to combat this crisis by helping financial institutions offer their customers more secure access to personal data.

According to a recent U.S. Justice Department report, identity theft has surpassed drug trafficking as the number-one crime in the United States. In 2006 alone, 8.9 million U.S. adults were victims of identity fraud (1). Call centers and IVR systems are particularly vulnerable as existing methods of confirming the identity of callers are now considered less secure than access provided by the Internet. Federal regulations provide specific guidance on authentication in an Internet banking environment, including high-risk services performed through telephone banking systems and call centers attached to financial institutions. Recent studies conclude that most consumers would enroll their voiceprint with their financial institution, for example, if given the opportunity. Intervoice Banking 4.0 offers new mechanisms like speaker verification to deliver account information to the customer/member and protects customer accounts through increased account access security.

"Intervoice has long been a leader in providing self-service solutions for the financial services industry, and we are keenly aware of the vulnerabilities inherent in phone banking," said Ken Goldberg, senior vice president, marketing, alliances and corporate development, Intervoice. "Customers are responding enthusiastically to the addition of voice authentication to our already robust banking offering, and we will continue to develop enhancements that foster safe, convenient and cost-effective voice self-service to our customers and, by extension, to their consumers."

About Intervoice Banking 4.0

Out of the box, Intervoice Banking gives financial institutions a way to provide voice self-service to its customers, either through speech or touchtone. Customers calling into the system can verbally identify themselves, their account and their requests without having to traverse complex menus. Customers benefit from being able to interact with a friendly, conversational system that provides anytime, anywhere access to account information. In addition, the 4.0 version of Intervoice Banking further enriches the set of available features and adds powerful new security options for reducing risk and enabling compliance. Key new features include:

• Speaker Verification - This feature adds a layer of security into the authentication process after successful PIN authentication: the voiceprint of the caller. Critical to note is that a voiceprint is not a recording of the voice, rather, a set of measurable characteristics of a human voice that uniquely identifies an individual. Now, callers must not only know correct profile information, but must also successfully pass voiceprint screening.
• Fax - The fax feature enables an authenticated caller to receive a FAX of their transaction detail, such as account balance, total debits, etc. Callers can also request a fax based on specific request criteria.
• Credit Card Accounts - The credit card account type is being added to the list of available account types in Intervoice Banking 4.0. Information now available to the caller includes account balance, recent transactions and payment detail.
• Accounts Quick Check - This feature allows the caller to hear the balance of all of their accounts; getting them the information they need quickly and efficiently.

Additional new features include:

• Account Balance Enhancements
• Custom Transfer
• Customer Authentication Enhancement
• Debit Card/Credit Card Activation/Deactivation
• Loan & Credit Card Payment
• Loan Payment History
• Marketing Messages
• Transaction History Detail

The Intervoice Banking 4.0 application integrates with many of the top bank core processors and with virtually any call center and banking environment.

Availability

Intervoice Banking 4.0 is available immediately through Intervoice's channel partners.

(1) Javelin Strategy and Research, February 2007