Barclays is rolling out voice biometrics technology at its call centres that recognises customers when they start talking.
Customers who call Barclays currently have to share their passcodes or 16-digit debit card numbers in order to verify themselves.
With the new system, customers can choose to have their voice recorded and held on file by the bank. Then, when the call to access their account, they engage in a few seconds of conversation with a staffer.
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 employee when the customer's identity has been verified.
Barclays began using the Nuance system at its wealth management arm last year but is set to introduce it for normal retail customers early next year.
Ashok Vaswani, chief executive, Barclays personal and corporate banking, told the Sunday Telegraph that the technology is "foolproof" and cuts the time it takes to verify customers from 90 seconds to 10 seconds.