DBS, OCBC roll out voice biometrics for phone banking customers

Clients can be authenticated in just 15 seconds.

Voice recognition is the next frontier for two of Singapore’s largest banks. Both DBS and OCBC have revealed that voice biometrics will become available to their retail customers in the second half of the year, in a bid to cut down the length of time that clients spend on calls.

OCBC first launched its voice biometrics service to a select group of retail customers in September 2015, while speech recognition technology was rolled out for all clients in April 2016. Voice biometrics will be available to the bank’s retail customers in the fourth quarter of this year, when customers will be able to use their voiceprints to authenticate a majority of banking transactions.

While voice biometrics replaces PINs, passwords and security questions, speech recognition technology recognises and understands a customer’s spoken request, thereby enabling the customer to access the required service faster and more accurately.

Meanwhile, DBS said that voice recognition service will be available at its customer centres by the end of 2016. This follows the launch of a dynamic interactive voice response (IVR) system at the bank’s customer centre in December 2015.

Using voice biometrics, both banks say that customers can be verified in 15 seconds or less as they speak to customer service officers. DBS reckons that the introduction of voice recognition technology will reduce the time clients spend on authentication by between 20 to 40 seconds.