Wells Fargo Integrates STC’s Proprietary Face and Voice Biometric for Mobile Security Pilot

Wells Fargo announced the pilot of a new biometric technology that gives its business customers the ability to log into mobile apps using face and voice authentication instead of traditional passwords. Wells Fargo is utilizing STC’s VoiceKey.OnePass proprietary voice biometric algorithms and supplemental technologies. Its triple biometric accuracy derives from a combination of voice authentication, facial recognition, and a number of unique anti-spoofing “liveness” tests.

As described in a recent Fortune magazine article, the first Wells Fargo customers have signed up to use this new authentication solution through their iPhones. Instead of using traditional passwords to gain access to an account, a customer simply uses their smart phone’s built-in camera and microphone to scan their face and voice. To our knowledge, this is the first deployment of a simultaneous face and voice biometric authentication on a mobile platform in the financial services industry.

Many banking customers find entering passwords into their phones to be a frustrating experience. Using biometrics instead of traditional passwords removes this user experience roadblock and improves customer satisfaction.

The combination of face and voice biometric analysis also exponentially increases authentication accuracy. To ensure that a user is real and to prevent fraudulent log-in attempts, VoiceKey OnePass offers a number of “anti-spoofing” liveliness tests that are uniquely possible through the combination of voice and face biometrics. As Wells Fargo executive Secil Watson said in the Fortune piece, “Passwords were great for the first fifteen years of the Internet. The next fifteen years, we need another solution.”