Consumers to confirm their transactions orally

Voice Commerce Group, working with Nasdaq-listed Nuance Communications developed a new technology allowing customers to authenticate their online banking transactions using only their voices.

Banks and retailers are expected to soon adopt Voice Transact system, the voice biometric technology which is the latest brainchild of the WorldPay founder, Nick Ogden, who at present time owns Voice Commerce Group.
At the moment,  voice-based systems are being tested by a number of UK banks including Royal Bank of Scotland, the bank that acquired WorldPay.

The operational principle of the system is like signatures a bank holds to authenticate customers' checks. And as in the case with checks, the signing responsibility rests on the consumer which lowers the banks' risk of losses from fraud.

As per Ogden, the work of Voice Transact resembles WorldPay as it provides an independent online payment platform. The site based in Jersey is to store the voice prints of customers who will have to record a three-minute series of random numbers when they sign up to the system.

In order to enhance the security of the transactions, in addition to the voice-print the system will check the caller's transaction history, location (via calling line indicators) and secondary "know your customer" data.

"Voice signatures processed by the Voice Transact service could help significantly secure payment transactions and reduce fraud and phishing-related scams," Ogden says.