Biometric imaging has come of age in the security-conscious world of commercial banking. Identix Inc, a leading player in biometric imaging, has completed a six-month trial of its Fingerscan technology at the Conavi Bank of Medellin, Colombia and the Bank has ordered 100 systems to equip 50 branches. Identix chairman and chief executive Randall Fowler, believes this is the first commercial example of customer-facing biometric technology in banking. He explains that the biometric devices will be used to identify passbook account customers at each branch. Previous methods, comparing signatures against microfiche records, were slow and insecure. In the event of fraud, liability lay with customer, so Conavi saw Fingerscan as offering unique competitive advantage … and it offered genuine benefits to customers. The trial was conducted jointly with Fujitsu Espana and a local distributor, ISC Ingenieros, which has lengthy experience of working with Colombian banking industry. Eight devices were installed in one branch and 5,000 customers enrolled in the system. Identification devices compare a person’s fingertip against the template or file created when the customer enrolled, and the system provides both immediate verification of identity and creates an audit trail. The Sunnyvale, Californian company is rolling out the second phase of a similar system at Bank Central Asia in Jakarta. It sees financial services as key target markets for future biometric applications.
