NAB simplifies, tightens security for phone banking

NAB deployed a voice biometric identification and verification function aimed at delivering enhanced customer experience and security.

The new service will make National Australia Bank customers' telephone banking experience much simpler without the need to remember cumbersome passwords and PINs, and it will protect their privacy.

The launch of the new voice biometrics service follows NAB's multi-million dollar investment into improving customer security throughout its national branch, ATM and direct channel networks.

The new speech security function is now available to NAB's 3.3 million Personal Banking customers, after the completion of the successful internal pilot involving 2,000 branch staff throughout May.

"Our objective is to provide customers with a more convenient, faster and easy-to-use telephone banking experience while simultaneously improving identity security," said Mr. Warren Shaw, NAB Personal Banking's Executive General Manager for nabretail.

"With identity theft-related fraud increasingly moving to the phone channel, the use of voice biometrics enables the effective identification, authentication and verification of customers, offering an extra layer of protection," he added.

Voice biometrics is a highly secure method of authentication as it is harder to steal a voice pattern than it is to steal a password or PIN. The new speech security service will enable customers calling NAB's Customer Contact Centre to register a print of their unique voice pattern.

This will allow NAB to accurately confirm an identity, ensuring that a person really is who they say they are. "Once enrolled with the speech security service, customers have an alternative to remembering passwords or PINs, as their voice will become their password. The new security solution will save a lot of time, confusion and frustration," Mr Shaw said.