COMMENTARY: BIOMETRICS Who not what: Biometric authentication will increasingly be used to protect customers and businesses in 2021
Me, me, me... a new chapter in fraud prevention The events of 2020 left many organisations and their customers more vulnerable than ever to digital fraud. Brett Beranek, VP and General Manager for Security and Biometrics at Nuance Communications, foresees greater reliance on biometrics as a solution Whether within our workplaces, our homes, or even our cars, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has quickly become part of almost every aspect of our lives. Activities and interactions we wouldn’t think twice about – such as messaging a live chat agent on our favourite retail website or using our voice to verify personal details with our bank – typically incorporate the use of conversational AI. In many cases, there is a good chance that the AI technologies we are interacting with have been developed by Nuance Communications. For more than 20 years, the company has pioneered voice technologies, natural language understanding and machine learning that are designed to transform the way people work, connect and
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interact with each other. It holds more than 3,000 patents, and its AI-powered, intelligent engagement solutions are currently trusted by 2,500 leading brands worldwide. In fact, Nuance supports 31 billion intelligent customer interactions, and prevents £1.5billion in fraud losses every year. Financial services institutions, including 95 per cent of the top banks worldwide – for example, NatWest and HSBC – are deploying Nuance technology to provide frictionless, virtual self-service and live assistance through digital and voice channels, secured with biometric solutions that increase customer retention, expand share of wallet, and reduce operational costs.
A NEW FRAUD LANDSCAPE While the current COVID-19 crisis has brought many businesses and operations to a standstill, one area it hasn’t diminished is fraud. The sad truth is that fraudsters don’t stop their crimes because of a pandemic. In fact, they often seize the immense change that comes with an event like this to ramp up their activity – targeting individuals and businesses while they are at their most vulnerable and least protected. With the current, widespread shift towards staying – and therefore working – at home, many businesses and their
customers are finding themselves coming up against more frequent and more sophisticated styles of attack. Many organisations are simply not prepared, and do not have the latest safeguarding tools in place to shield themselves from financial loss and protect their customers from identity theft. In such an uncertain time, it has never been more important for organisations to bolster their cybersecurity strategies and arm themselves with the technology to keep fraudsters at bay while maintaining usual levels of service. During these unprecedented times, companies have continued to turn to Nuance’s AI-powered biometric solutions as a means of protecting their employees and customers alike from fraudsters. By automatically identifying when fraudulent calls are being made, these technologies are proving an invaluable tool for helping to protect customers looking to make digital transactions during this unusual time. They also help to shield work-at-home agents, who are often the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain, by improving internal security checks and verifying their identities. This prevents fraudsters from pretending to be them in order to gain wider access to businesses’ sensitive information. With the uncertainty around the pandemic still raging and fraud attempts www.fintechf.com