NAB selects Salmat's voice biometric solution

Telstra has deployed a Salmat VeCommerce voice biometric solution, VeSecure, at the National Australia Bank—a first for the Australian banking industry.

The bespoke solution is designed to improve the customer experience on NAB’s telephone banking and enhance security and privacy by removing the need for customers to remember PINs and passwords.

Telstra led the sale and implementation of VeSecure as part of the bank’s ongoing customer service initiative. This follows the deployment of VeConnect at the bank earlier this year to enhance the routing of telephone banking calls and the launch of a single telephone number: 136 NAB, to cover all of the bank’s customer enquiries.

Using the voice biometric functionality of VeSecure, once callers have registered their unique voiceprint, they simply need to recite their individual account number to have their identity verified.

NAB Personal Banking's Program Manager, Direct Channels Speech Program, Sam Jackel said NAB was always looking for ways to improve customer experience and deliver the highest levels of security.

"Our objective is to provide customers with a more convenient, faster and easy-to-use telephone banking experience while simultaneously improving identity security," Mr Jackel said.

Telstra Enterprise & Government General Manager for Financial Services, Rocky Scopelliti, said the introduction of speech recognition and voice biometric technology at NAB has set an Australian benchmark for customer service in the banking industry.

"This solution boosts productivity, whilst fundamentally addressing the inherent concerns of fraud. We are confident that NAB’s employees and customers will realise the significant benefits of this unique service from the outset," Mr Scopelliti said.

Paul Magee, Managing Director of VeCommerce, said, "To be able to enhance the customer experience, whilst providing another layer of privacy and security is a great combination."

Telstra managed the coordination and deployment of the solution that integrates into NAB’s existing telephony infrastructure and utilises Nuance’s Verifier engine as a component of VeSecure. Telstra will also provide first level support for the solution.