Biometrics can provide a more secure and convenient way for consumers to authenticate their identities and access their accounts. Financial institutions are finding many benefits to biometric technology, including increased security, reduced fraud, and improved consumer experience. Learn more about the future of biometric technology and how your financial institution can stay up-to-date with industry trends.
What Are Biometrics?
Biometrics refers to the use of unique physical characteristics or behavioral traits to identify an individual. It’s becoming more common in this digital age as cases of fraud and identity theft become more common.
Biometrics in financial services is becoming increasingly popular as a way to improve security and streamline the authentication process for consumers to protect their sensitive information.
There are several types of biometric authentication commonly used by financial institutions to verify a consumer’s identity, such as:
- Fingerprint scanning
- Palm scanning
- Facial recognition
- Voice recognition
One area where biometric authentication is seeing significant growth is in personal teller machines (PTMs). These self-service kiosks are designed for financial institutions to automate in-branch transactions to provide consumers with an advanced digital experience.
A PTM is an advanced version of an automated teller machine (ATM) that combines self-service functionality with the option of remote teller assistance. While ATMs are fully automated and allow basic transactions without human interaction, PTMs take it a step further and can perform a majority of a teller's transactions unassisted. This adds ease and efficiency for consumers and frees up tellers' time to perform more value-added tasks.
Benefits of Biometrics in PTMs
Biometric authentication can help replace tedious and outdated security measures. The use of biometrics in PTMs has multiple benefits for both consumers and financial institutions to facilitate a better and more streamlined experience.
Benefits for Consumers
One of the main benefits of biometrics in PTMs includes enhanced security and fraud protection. Biometric authentication uses an individual’s unique biological characteristics or behavioral traits to verify their identity. Many of these biological patterns cannot be replicated even by the most experienced fraudsters.
To verify a consumer’s identity, biometric scanners use irregular and asymmetric patterns found in:
- Fingerprints
- Facial pattern
- Vein pattern
- DNA sequence
- Voice
- Gait
- Retina
- Iris
- Typing rhythm
Biometric data can help prevent fraud and stolen identity by cyber criminals, adding a much-needed extra layer of security for your consumers.
Another major benefit of biometrics in PTMs is increased convenience for consumers. Biometric screenings can replace PINs, passcodes, two-factor authentication, knowledge-based authentication, and other types of verification. The elimination of these outdated security measures streamlines processes, increasing consumer satisfaction.
Benefits for Financial Institutions
Financial institutions can improve efficiency, reduce wait times, improve consumer experience, and lower operational costs with the help of biometrics in PTMs.
As biometric authentication can eliminate the need for many face-to-face interactions to verify documentation and consumer identity, financial institutions can expect smoother operations and less time spent on verification. This also frees up tellers to spend more time on value-added tasks.
Given the benefits of biometric screenings, financial institutions can expect increased efficiency and consumer and employee satisfaction by investing in biometric technology.
Implementing Biometrics in Financial Services: Tips for Success
To ensure success, careful planning, and execution are pivotal in biometric self-service kiosk implementation for financial institutions. Working with a trusted leader in self-service financial transaction fulfillment like Source Technologies can ensure your data is accurate and protected.
Depending on your financial institution’s specific needs, biometrics can be integrated into PTMs to assist with opening accounts, withdrawing and depositing funds, applying for loans, and fulfilling other types of transactions that traditionally require identity verification. Making sure you identify your goals for biometric screening can ensure the integration is right for your institution.
To create a seamless enrollment process for your biometric approval system, you must capture consumers' biometric data accurately, conduct routine quality checks, implement robust security measures for data encryption and storage, validate biometric matching, and provide user education and support.
It’s also very important to ensure your PTMs are user-friendly during integration. By conducting usability testing and taking consumer feedback into account during the integration process, you can ensure your consumers are highly satisfied with your new technology.
Employee training and support can also play an integral role in ensuring success when implementing biometric authentication in your PTMs. When integrating new technology, make sure all staff is up-to-date on policies and procedures to ensure a smooth transition. Financial institutions should be prepared to provide ongoing support during the process.
Overall, by following these tips, financial institutions can successfully implement biometric kiosks to become more efficient, secure, and consumer-centric and provide a world-class solution to fit every consumer’s needs.
Future of Biometrics in PTMs
As technology advances and more financial institutions start to incorporate biometric capabilities, the future of biometrics in PTMs is upon us and is becoming brighter. In this digital age with cyber fraud on the rise and a heightened demand for streamlined financial transactions, consumers strive for a simplified and secure experience.
Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and biometric authentication have been proven to be safer and more secure than traditional methods of verification. As this technology continues to improve, more financial institutions will feel the demand to implement biometric screening into their PTMs.
Due to all these factors, it is safe to assume biometrics in the financial industry is here to stay and will continue to become more secure, safe, and accurate as time goes on. Industry leaders are continuing to find ways to improve biometric technology and find more efficient ways to integrate data to improve financial services.
Since this technology plays such a pivotal role in the future of financial services, it’s essential for institutions to stay on top of the latest technology and integrate biometrics into their PTMs. Consumers will continue to gravitate towards financial institutions that have accurate and secure biometric technology to make transactions as easy and seamless as possible.
Learn About Our Biometric Self Service Kiosks
Biometric technology is revolutionizing the financial industry by providing a secure and convenient way for consumers to safely access their accounts and conduct transactions with ease.
PTMs are a prime example of how financial institutions can integrate biometrics into their services to improve security and verification processes. By integrating biometric verification such as palm scanning into your PTMs, your institution can ensure secure and quick transactions for all your consumers.
Financial institutions that deploy PTMs with biometric technology are likely to see improved security, increased consumer satisfaction, and decreased operational costs. As biometrics continues to become more refined and common, financial institutions should stay on top of industry trends and prepare to integrate this dynamic technology into their daily operations.
Contact Source Technologies today to stay ahead of the game and learn how we can help you integrate self-service kiosks with biometric capability for your financial organization. Our experienced team is ready to help you get started.
