Barclays Wealth and Investment Management in the UK is using voice biometric technology to verify the identity of customers as they converse with call centre agents over the telephone.
When a customer calls in to Barclays to access their account, they engage in 20 to 30 seconds of natural conversation with a customer service agent. During that time, Nuance FreeSpeech voice biometrics technology is used to compare the customer's voice to their unique voiceprint on file, and silently signals to the Barclays representative when the customer's identity has been verified.
If the customer is not verified by the system, or if the transaction request is above security thresholds, Barclays agents revert to a traditional security Q&A procedure.
Since its introduction, 84% of Barclays' customers have been enrolled in the system, with 95% of those customers successfully verified in successive calls.
Matt Smallman, client experience strategy and change, Barclays Wealth and Investment Management says that customer feedback has improved since the technology was introduced five months ago, with 93% of customers rating the bank at 9 of 10 for speed, ease of use and security.
"In this competitive environment we need to make sure that clients' needs for convenience and ease of access are effectively balanced with our mutual need for security," he says. "Nuance's voice biometrics technology is playing a vital role...Both our clients and colleagues love that it increases security and convenience at the same time whilst making client calls shorter and reducing our overall cost to serve."