Biometrics is becoming more mainstream at credit unions. The technology, while not exactly new, is driven by the need to authenticate members and staff accurately and effortlessly.
"I would argue the next big thing is what we all talked about earlier this year and last year. Everyone knows about biometrics, we talked about how great it is, how excited consumers were, but we have not all talked about the value that it actually brings for those credit unions," Dan Weis, mobile product leader for Duluth, Ga.-based NCR, said.
"What we are really seeing is how biometrics is allowing the credit union itself to be more productive and more attentive to the member's needs," Ryon Packer, SVP, Enterprise Product Strategy at Brookfield-based Fiserv, explained.
The global financial services industry association Mobey Forum's Biometrics Workgroup's reports the vast majority of financial institutions intend to implement biometrics in the relatively near future, just as the number of handset manufacturers planning to integrate biometric capabilities into their devices rises.
NCR offers three financial biometrics solutions to make its mobile banking app easier to use including Apple Touch ID, Android Fingerprint ID, and EyeVerify's EyePrint ID.
To gauge biometrics impact, NCR performed a before-and-after study that tracked Touch ID users and how user logins to mobile apps changed. The logins have gone from 16 times a month up to 25 times a month on average.
Fiserv is looking at how biometrics can play a role across its entire product suite and provide the best value for credit unions and their members.
Fiserv plans to roll out palm vein technology, which credit unions can deploy on premises or using the cloud, to help authenticate members and employees.
Palm vein provides a high level of security with high accuracy so you get very few false negatives out of it, Packer said. He also noted the authentication technology not only fits more readily into the workday but also in the staffs' hands. In addition to scanning members' palms for authentication, Fiserv is utilizing a palm vein mouse to allow credit union employees to sign on to applications.
"We are at the forefront of another wave of what technology is going to be able to do for the movement and really help credit unions thrive," Packer emphasized.
Read more about biometric adoption at credit unions in the Nov. 2, 2016 print issue of CU Times.
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Roy Urrico
Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).
