Samsung to power biometric authentication pilot for Bank of America
Samsung will launch a pilot programme that enables Bank of America (BofA) customers to log into their mobile banking app by taking a picture of their eye, reports Finovate (Banking Technology‘s sister company).
According to a report from American Banker’s Penny Crosman, half of BofA’s customers are using fingerprint authentication to log into their app, a feature the bank began offering in 2015.
The other half of users login using their ID and password because they are either traditionalists, or hesitant to try the new login method for fear of a security breach.
The pending iris scanning feature is part of a larger effort to gauge user sentiment toward general biometric authentication, including facial scanning and voice recognition. Michelle Moore, head of digital banking at BofA, told American Banker: “One thing we know we need to work on with our customers is, even in today’s day and age of digital natives, there are questions about safety and security.”
A group of 1,500 Samsung and BofA employees, which was hand-picked to emulate BofA’s customer base, will spend six months testing the new authentication technology. The pilot aims to gauge if customers will use the new technology, if they understand it, and if they find it easy-to-use.
Samsung debuted the iris recognition technology in March during its Unpacked event. The company asserts that the technology is more secure than fingerprint scanning. In fact, the CEO of the company powering Samsung’s iris scanning technology, Mark Clifton, says the iris scanning technology is superior to the FBI’s fingerprinting technology, which offers 130 unique identifiers, compared to the 400 unique identifiers that Samsung’s iris scanning tool uses.
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