Banking through your mobile phone has become one of the top uses for mobile phone owners. With the Apple Pay release, there are even more tools and apps to help you bank securely and safely.
The military is getting in the game and the United Services Automobile Association (USAA) has announced the first biometric logon for their mobile application to help ensure their members can access their accounts for banking, insurance and investment securely through facial or voice recognition.
The new logons will be available in early February and the member only needs to look at the screen until prompted to blink for access or they recite a quick phrase to the phone.
In the U.S. customers of various banks and firms have lost $1.6 billion to fraud in 2013 according to the Federal Trade Commission and USAA wants to put their customers at ease before they even have to worry, Rick Swenson, ADP over USAA Fraud Operations and Strategy, said.
“(We) believe biometric logons are apart of the future for secure banking,” Swenson said.
Currently the biometric logons are available for members living in Arizona, but once the testing is over it will be available across the U.S., Swenson said.
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The new logons are available for Apple and Android users and gives members who want an extra layer of security the ability to require a facial scan or voice recognition in order to access their USAA accounts, Swenson said.
They chose to use facial and voice recognition to give the user more security because it would be available to users of all types of smartphones, Swenson said.
They plan to have fingerprint identification in the future, according to a statement by USAA.
The new biometric logons is a by-product of USAA’s ongoing innovation lab where they developed the software in-house to allow users to quickly logon to their mobile application, Swenson said.
Since October the logons have been tested by 75,000 members and is set to be available for the approximate 3.2 millions users who have the app downloaded on their phone by Feb. 3., Swenson said.
Swenson said this new technology was not made as a direct result of online threats against USAA’s member’s accounts, but was made as a security progression to compete against online threats.
“We prefer to be leaders instead of laggers,” Swenson said.
The biometric logons are only available for mobile devices, Swenson said, but they are working towards having these logons available on tablets and desktops.
Read more on biometric technology at AZTB
