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Aviva Australia has launched an application of voice biometrics for their telephone banking customers.

In a bid to improve customer service, convenience and security, the new voice biometric authentication will identify users by their unique voice characteristics, and direct them to the appropriate adviser.

National Australia Bank (NAB) rolled out the voice biometric system earlier in the week, and general manager Brett Feldon said: “The new deployment at Aviva Australia shows the maturity and growing acceptance of voice biometrics by some of the world’s leading financial institutions. In an increasingly competitive environment where there is heightened pressure to provide better customer service as well as boost security by removing the reliance on PINs and passwords, we expect other global players to follow their example.”

The following is a press release from market research firm ABI Research concerning the percolation of biometric technology into the consumer markets.

Long the domain of government and law enforcement agencies, biometric systems are increasingly moving into the market for personal data management and security. Laptops, mobile phones, storage drives and other personal devices will increasingly include biometric options to provide an additional layer of access security.

“Biometrics players increasingly have to support both public and private sector demand. It will be those that leverage the key biometric standards initially developed for the public sector but with scope for private sector deployments that will reap the benefits,” says ABI Research principal analyst Jonathan Collins.

Biometrics move into everyday life will help familiarize a broad population with the concept of using biometric measurements and systems to protect their own data. At the same time biometrics systems will become more and more commonplace in workplaces to protect physical and logical access to key resources.

The combined growth in both government, law enforcement and private sectors for biometrics will drive spending on biometrics systems over the next five years up to $7.3 billion by 2013, up from around $3 billion in 2008.

Although biometrics increasingly pushes into corporate and consumer deployments, traditional government and law enforcement biometrics spending will continue to dominate investment over the next five years. However, the ability to leverage technologies developed for the public sector in private sector and personal deployments will be increasingly important.

“In addition,” notes Collins, “The wide variety of biometrics technologies available including face, fingerprint, iris, hand and speech recognition systems, as well as their differing characteristics, has created opportunities for vendors and systems integrators to help customers select the correct biometric measurement or combination of measurements for any application.

Increasingly the test for biometrics players will be to understand and supply both markets with a range of suitable, secure and trusted products and systems.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has reiterated that biometric scans taken in the high street retail environment will be safe.

Anti-ID campaigners have protested that there is no sure-fire way to guarantee the security of data collected in shops, a suggestion the Home Secretary was quick to quash.

“It is clearly important, and part of the work we are doing and the plans we have in place, to ensure the secure, controlled transfer of any biometrics,” Smith told ZDNet UK at a press event. “I believe it is technically possible to do that. I don’t see the challenge is greater because more people are accredited to do it.”

When asked about the possibility of a change in government causing the National Identity Scheme to be scrapped, Smith said: “I can’t answer whether the Tories would cancel the ID scheme - [If they do] they will have to answer how they will fill the black hole not only left by ID cards but biometric passports. They would have to answer why they have taken away security and convenience from the British people.”

SAFRAN through Sagem Securite, its wholly owned subsidiary and a world leader in ID solutions based on biometrics, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the biometric business unit within Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), which includes its Printrak trademark. The acquisition has been approved by Motorola and SAFRAN.

Motorola’s biometric business unit, headquartered in Anaheim, California, USA, designs, develops, integrates and maintains automated fingerprint identification systems (”AFIS”) for law enforcement, civil and commercial customers around the world. The firm serves national, state, county and municipal agencies internationally, and provides integration solutions and systems for more than 300 customers in 40 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Jean-Paul Herteman, CEO of SAFRAN said, “This acquisition enables Sagem Securite to strengthen its position in the US market for homeland security where it is already committed to offer world-class identification solutions to government, state and local markets. This acquisition is a continuation of SAFRAN’s long history of investing in the US. It is also an important step in our plan to improve our product offering, expand production in the US, and reduce costs.”

Jean-Paul Jainsky, CEO of Sagem Securite added, “Through this acquisition, Sagem Securite, its existing customers, and Motorola’s existing biometrics customers are expected to benefit from increased efficiencies and customer responsiveness from the merger of the two businesses.”

“Biometrics is a very dynamic business that we believe requires companies to specialize in the technology,” said Gene Delaney, president, Government & Public Safety, Motorola. “To best serve our customers and employees, Motorola made a judgment that we need to concentrate and lead in our area of strength - delivering best-in-class mission critical communications solutions for government, public safety and commercial customers.”

The transaction is targeted to close first quarter of 2009 at the latest and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
SAFRAN, with approximately $17 billion in revenue in 2007, is an international high-technology group. SAFRAN has been operating in the U.S. for 30 years and is a world leader in a number of industrial segments, including aircraft engines through the 34-year CFM International Joint Venture with General Electric, and also supplies aircraft components used on many U.S. military platforms as well as civil aviation customers. Its largest U.S. customer is Boeing and it has significant relationships with other U.S. aerospace companies. SAFRAN operates in aerospace propulsion, aircraft equipment, defense and security.

Products incorporating SAFRAN’s technology have been used for over 20 years by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard and NASA. Representative products today include KC-135R Stratotanker C-17 Globemaster, F/A-18, F-16, F-22, V-22 and C-130. SAFRAN is party to over 100 technical assistance agreements (TAAs) and manufacturing licence agreements (MLAs), has 22 empowered corporate officials dedicated to export control and regulations and is committed to full compliance to such requirements and implements internal policies and procedures to this end.

SAFRAN has more than 57,000 employees in over 30 countries, including 3,500 employees in the U.S. with facilities and offices in 42 locations across 19 states.

eWeek.com has a great article on preventing fraud in financial institutions, with SocGen being the case in point, using biometric solutions.

From their conclusion:

To mitigate fraud, these banks and financial institutions need to supplement their internal controls compliance with biometric authentication. Biometrics will prevent data breaches of security

Read the rest of the article here.