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Find out how selfie banking invigorated UnionBank’s EON Prepaid Account. When UnionBank thought of a strategy to double the sign-ups for its EON Prepaid Account debit card in the Philippines — notably the social media capital of the world — it leveraged the irresistible urge of people to take self-portraits or better known as selfies. UnionBank went to work, harnessing the latest in biometrics technology, to come up with a selfie banking feature that enables clients take pictures of themselves with their smartphones to log in securely to their online accounts. The bank then re-launched the EON Prepaid Account, an electronic money account, with this cool feature at the forefront along with other snazzy upgrades. The gambit has paid off for the bank, the seventh biggest in the country: Selfie banking has been doubling client sign-ups for UnionBank’s EON Prepaid Account Visa debit card since the re-launch in March. Not only has the feature generated buzz among debit card users, but it has also thrilled existing users by making account management more convenient and adding another security layer. Biometric facial authentication, the security technology on which selfie banking runs, has been praised by security experts to provide stronger protection in age of rising cyberattacks. “With selfie banking, customers can log in to their account by doing what they’ve always loved to do — posing in front of a smartphone and taking a selfie,” says Paolo Eugenio J. Baltao, senior vice president, EON banking group at Union Bank of the Philippines. “By adding face recognition, EON attains the gold standard in security — something you know, something you have, and something you are — a multi-factor authentication process to protect customers from the escalating threats to cybersecurity.” The Ericsson Mobility Report says there were 40 million smartphone users in the Philippines in 2016, and this will more than double to 90 million by 2021, as smartphones become more affordable and mobile telecommunications technology further evolve. This bodes well for mobile banking in the Philippines and UnionBank’s prospects of drawing in more EON Prepaid Account users. Stronger security against cyberattacks Selfie banking was one of the ways UnionBank rebooted its EON Prepaid Account to shield banking clients from cyberattacks. “EON uses state-of-the-art face recognition technology. It is the same technology being used by the US and other countries for border control, immigration, and securing critical infrastructure,” says Baltao.

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