HSBC claims that the introduction of voice biometrics at its call centres has prevented almost £400 million of customers’ money from falling into the hands of telephone fraudsters in 2019.
VoiceID, which was introduced by HSBC in 2016 and is currently used by over 2 million active customers, works by recognizing unique characteristics of a customer’s voice, to enable safe and speedy access to telephone banking.
The bank says that since the technology has been introduced in the UK, over 29,000 fraudulent calls have been identified, with over £395 million worth of customers’ money protected. In 2019, more than 17,000 fraud calls were identified, double the amount in 2018.
The increased activity by fraudsters is thought to be as a result of a significant number of high-profile third-party data breaches, phishing emails and scam text messages that have taken place over the last couple of years.
Kerri-Anne Mills, head of contact centre and customer service at HSBC UK, says: “We are now enrolling around 16,000 customers in Voice ID each week and the technology continues to be instrumental in the fight against fraud, providing a library of fraudsters’ voice prints to cross check against new incoming calls.”