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Voice biometrics or authentication on its own needs to have other security measures in place such as device binding, random liveness functionality, behavioural signals, geolocation, or a process for step-up or multi-factor authentication should a situation arise whereby there are multiple attempts to hack into someone's account.  

Somewhere, HSBC policies on the number of attempts to log-in were not strong enough.  In the BBC report, it says they tried 20 times.  Your credit card locks you out after three attempts, why 20 were allowed HSBC have to resolve.  The issue over twins has been known in the biometrics industry for years.  They aren't many unique things that can separate them, apart from possibly fingerprints.  However if your twin wants to de-fraud you, you have a serious family issue.

Biometrics is not 100% (nothing is!).  They need to work in conjunction with other security checks, but they are far more secure than weak or stolen passwords.  An estimate of the number of hacked or stolen passwords is put at around 3 billion according to some experts.  

Face combined with voice or fingerprints together with the above security measures makes it much harder to circumvent.  Sadly, this kind of story doesn't help confidence with consumers unless they can understand how it properly works safely.

As HSBC stated publicly fraud levels are gone down as a result.

Indeed many customers are already using biometric technology to log into the bank accounts. 

As reported by Planet Biometrics recently, Mobile biometric authentication provider Daon has announced that its client USAA bank has reached a key milestone of processing 1 million mobile biometric enrollments for its banking app.

USAA has integrated Daon's IdentityX Platform into their existing 2-Factor mobile app authentication.

In a statement, Daon noted that IdentityX expands the authentication options for USAA's members, allowing them to choose and easily utilse their face and voice on their smartphones to authenticate.   Daon offers a range of biometric technologies with IdentityX, including FIDO compliant solutions.

"Achieving this rate of adoption by USAA clearly demonstrates Daon's ability to operate at scale," said Tom Grissen, Daon's chief executive officer. "Watching the rapid adoption of biometrics by USAA and reading the complimentary Tweets of USAA members is a testament to the desire to use this form of authentication and validates the efforts put forward by both organizations."

"USAA is very excited with the advanced rate of biometrics adoption we have seen," said Rick Swenson, assistant vice president of enterprise financial crimes management strategy and analytics. "Reaching the milestone of 1 million enrollments is a strong testament of our members' preference to use a biometric when authenticating.

"By offering a biometric in conjunction with our very secure 'Quick Logon' solution, USAA is able to provide our members both a highly secure and convenient means to access their accounts. We thank Daon for their work throughout this exciting implementation and for the IdentityX Platform that allowed us to provide more options for our members."

Indeed, the USAA bank is not the first and certainly won't be the last.