The use of mobile banking has increased over the past few years. With more than 1.9 billion users preferring digital financial services, banks are taking initiatives to close down physical offices. More than 300 breaches have been closed in 2022 (up to date), including of the largest banks such as NatWest, Halifax, Santander, HSBC, Barclays, and Lloyds. With the shift to digital financial services, old-school authentication methods like usernames, PINs, or passwords are no longer enough to detect fraud attempts.
Cybercriminals are employing sophisticated efforts to pass through traditional identity verification checks. In order to deter their attempts, banks require biometric screening solutions. With liveness detection and facial verification as its core identification checks, financial institutions can promise secure digital payment services.
Biometric User Authentication and the Applications of Liveness Detection
Banks have been using easy methods for customer identification, such as manual identity verification during physical visits. After their shift to digital financial services, they offered usernames and passwords to log-in banking apps. However, over the years, conventional authentication methods have been seen as prone to easy hacking. Cybercriminals easily pass through fraud prevention tactics by creating counterfeit profiles and tampering with documents to support their identity claim.
The use of spoofing attacks is another common method cybercriminals use to breach digital banking systems. Considering the increase in fraud risks, it has become liable for financial institutions to bring in more efficient countermeasures. Integrating biometric user authentication opens doors to more accuracy and secure digital banking. While cybercriminals continue to grow more sophisticated, financial institutions need to implement robust security measures. In this regard, biometric security solutions offer liveness detection, which is an effective way to deter criminal attempts.
Deep Insights into the Concept of Liveness Detection
Liveness detection refers to the advanced form of biometric recognition. It analyzes customers’ facial features along with surroundings analysis to ensure they are present both at the time of onboarding and while making a transaction. Furthermore, biometric technology uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms that efficiently identify fraudulent attempts. Criminals can not bypass these identity verification checks even if they use pre-recorded videos, create fake surroundings, wear masks, or deploy other forms of impersonation.
Biometric screening-based liveness detection determines whether a user holds a genuine profile by employing the following checks:
- 3D analysis of image textures and in-depth examination of backgrounds
- Detection of gestures, muscle movements, and natural emotions
Benefits of Establishing Biometric Security Systems for Digital Banking
Liveness detection is a game changer for digital banking systems striving to improve security and customer experience. It provides real-time user identification, so there will be fewer chances of fraudulent onboarding. The AI-powered biometric security system asks the customer to face the camera and perform some gestures such as blinking their eyes and moving heads. By using mathematical algorithms, liveness detection tools analyze backgrounds, including colors, noise, movements, and other such factors. Further benefits of integrating biometric recognition include:
Effortless Integration
The AI-powered biometric screening solutions are easy to integrate as they rely on computer technologies. Furthermore, the use of this service does not involve manual efforts. Customers can avail of self-driven authentication without installing additional software or apps. This makes biometric ID verification more user-friendly than any other user identification method.
More Completion and fewer Drop-offs
While ensuring a user-friendly experience, biometric recognition solutions decrease drop-off rates. Customers demand frictionless digital transactions without compromising their data privacy and cybersecurity. Furthermore, liveness detection increases accuracy by identifying customers despite wearing make-up, glasses, or other items. Similarly, grown beards or hair also do not hinder user authentication. Hence, banking systems can also prevent spoofing attempts and safeguard their services from external criminal breaches.
Balances Convenience with Security
Customers demand frictionless digital onboarding with faster payment options. However, they are less likely to prefer financial institutions with a compromised reputation or involving a high threat of criminal activities. Therefore, digital banking systems require biometric screening tactics to uphold their integrity and maintain a balance of convenience with security.
Multinational User Authentication
Manual verification methods have their limitations, such as inaccurate authentication of users belonging to the same color groups or with identical features. This inefficiency paves the way for spoofing attempts which compromises the whole digital banking system. On the contrary, AI-powered biometric identity verification and liveness detection solutions authenticate customers from every ethnic and racial group. Hence, they leave no room for false positives.
In the End
Financial institutions are striving to meet customer demands by introducing digital banking services. However, they can not leave user security and convenience unattended. While cybercriminals deploy sophisticated efforts to create counterfeit profiles and escape customer authentication, biometric security measures place necessary restrictions on them. With liveness detection and facial feature analysis, there will be less space for fraudsters to exploit digital banking services.
