BARCLAYS has become the first UK bank to launch scanners that identify customers by their fingers’ unique vein patterns, as the bank seeks to ramp up its fight against cyber crime and fraud.
Biometric finger vein readers will be offered to corporate clients for a fee from next year, enabling them to access their online bank accounts and authorise payments quickly without the need for a PIN number or password, Barclays said.
The move highlights how banks are seeking to upgrade their technology to combat the rise of identity theft and other versions of cyber crime.
In the UK, slightly more than one-quarter of the adult population has been a victim of identity fraud at some point, and an estimated £3.3bn is lost in through such crimes each year, according to a survey by the National Fraud Authority.
Vein technology is considered more reliable and safe than simple fingerprint recognition as blood vessel patterns are much more difficult to replicate and the scanned finger must be attached to a live human body.
“We did not feel comfortable with fingerprint technology in the corporate space, where clients are moving tens of millions of pounds,” said Ashok Vaswani, chief executive of personal and corporate banking at Barclays.
With Barclays’ move, the UK is starting to catch up with other countries around the world. Biometric finger vein readers are used for password replacement and cash machines using the technology are widespread in Japan. Turkey and Russia have also introduced them. BPH and Getin Bank in Poland became the first banks in the European Union to roll out such cash machines in the past two years.
Vein technology is considered an improvement over PIN numbers and passwords for corporate accounts because numbers may be shared among employees in treasury departments.
Some banks have been reluctant in the past to use biometric technology because they have had legal and ethical concerns about the use and storage of such data. But the UK lender has sought to assuage such concerns.
Its small, egg-shaped scanning devices have two levels of security. First the finger is scanned. If it matches, that unblocks an encrypted SIM card – like the ones used in a mobile phone – that then sends the account authorisation codes to the bank. So the user, rather than the bank, keeps hold of the record of his or her vein patterns.
Barclays and Japanese technology firm Hitachi, which has developed the devices, said the combination of vein biometric scanners with digital signature technology is a first for the global financial sector.
Mr Vaswani said a similar technology could be introduced for retail customers working through smartphones or iPads.
“We are working closely with Hitachi to get it to the next level. Biometrics is the way to the future,” he said.
FT
