DBS, OCBC roll out voice biometrics for phone banking customers

Clients can be authenticated in just 15 seconds.

Voice recognition is the next frontier for two of Singapore’s largest banks. Both DBS and OCBC revealed on Friday that voice biometrics will become available to retail customers in the second half of the year, in a bid to cut down the length of time that clients spend on calls.

OCBC launched its voice biometrics service to a number of retail customers in September 2015, while speech recognition technology was rolled out for all clients in April 2016. Meanwhile, DBS said that voice recognition service will be available at its customer centres by the end of 2016.

Using voice biometrics, both banks say that customers can be verified in 15 seconds or less as they speak to customer service officers. DBS reckons that the introduction of voice recognition technology will reduce the time clients spend on authentication by between 20 to 40 seconds.