Citi launches 15-second voice recognition customer verification system in Asia

ZUU

Updated 29 June 2017 at 10:36 pm

Citibank has installed the NICE Real-Time Authentication voice-recognition system in its call centres across nine Asian countries and regions, including Hong Kong and Singapore.

The new service cuts customer verification time to 15 seconds, from the 30-45 seconds it takes to verify a customer’s identity by requesting a PIN code or making other verification checks. Citibank expects to achieve a time saving of up to 300mn seconds (3,472 days, 5 hours and 20 seconds) at its US call centres, where the new system was introduced a little sooner.

95% of retail bank transactions are online or via mobile apps

Source: Shutterstock

The thing that most annoys customers when dealing with a call centre is having to answer questions to verify their identity or to input a passcode. The NICE system verifies a caller’s identity in a few seconds by matching their vocal pattern with a pre-recorded voice print. This will not only make dealing with a call centre a more convenient experience for customers but will also help to tighten security.

The NICE system was developed by Israeli software company NICE, which has a track record of supplying the system and big data and analysis solutions to 25,000 companies in 150 countries.

Fortune Magazine reports that Citi began developing the voice biometrics customer verification system in 2013 and began a customer-facing pilot in 2015. The system went live for all Citi’s US credit card customers last year, and already 250,000 of them have signed up for it.

Citibank was once the leader in private banking in the Asia-Pacific region, but it has been withdrawing from parts of the region including Korea, Macau and Japan since 2014, and scaling back its operations in the remaining areas. Currently, 95% of its retail bank transactions are performed online or via mobile apps. Mobile banking is showing the strongest growth, of 35% p.a.

Citi is responding to the changing nature of customer demand by introducing the NICE system in Taiwan, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and India, and this may herald a new phase of expansion in the bank’s Asian business.

(By ZUU)

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95% of retail bank transactions are online or via mobile apps

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