Customers of U.K. retail bank TSB will soon be able to access mobile banking just by looking at their phone's camera.
We are used to hearing, on an almost daily basis, of ground breaking financial technology breakthroughs coming out of China, so it comes as a surprise that the first time a major bank has opted for iris scanning biometric authentication it is a British institution.
Headquartered in Edinburgh but owned by Spain's Sabadell group,TSB is set to introduce iris recognition to its mobile banking app, the first bank in Europe to commit to provide the technology, as the Bank’s high-tech transformation gathers pace.
Memory Loss
Customers with a Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ smartphone will be able, from September 2017, to unlock their TSB mobile banking app using the Samsung Pass iris scanner.
This means TSB’s customers can access their banking using either the fingerprint (an existing feature) or the iris scanner, so there is no need to remember (or forget) lengthy IDs or passwords.
Eyes Better Than Fingers
Iris scanning is the most secure form of biometric authentication available today, with 266 unique characteristics compared with 40 for fingerprints. It is also the most user-friendly, one look and the mobile app is ready to use.
«Iris recognition allows you to unlock your TSB mobile app with a simple glance, meaning all of those IDs, passwords and memorable information become a thing of the past,» said Carlos Abarca, TSB’s Chief Information Officer.
