Across global banking, a transformation is underway. While headlines highlight faster payments, AI-driven investment tools, or mobile-first platforms, the most critical question is often overlooked: who gets access, and can we trust it?
The rising challenge
Security threats grow more advanced every month, yet customers and employees expect speed and simplicity. Traditional credentials, such as passwords, OTPs, security questions, are proving unreliable, vulnerable to phishing, and frustrating to use. For banks, verifying every login and transaction without disrupting operations has become mission-critical.
Biometrics: a better way
Biometric authentication changes the game by tying access directly to the individual. A fingerprint can’t be borrowed, a face can’t be shared. Whether it’s a teller logging into a branch terminal, a remote analyst accessing risk systems, or a customer approving a wire transfer, biometrics deliver both confidence and convenience. Early adopters already report fewer failed logins, lower credential-related support costs, stronger audit trails, and most importantly, higher trust.
Where It Begins: Onboarding
Identity doesn’t start at login, it starts at onboarding. For banks, Know Your Customer checks are essential, but document scans alone are too easy to fake. Modern onboarding combines ID authentication with real-time selfies, biometric matching, and liveness detection to stop spoofs and deepfakes. The result: faster, more secure account openings that satisfy regulators and delight mobile-first customers.
Securing Access Across Contexts
Biometrics adapt to any environment, embedded into core banking systems, integrated with mobile apps, or used as part of multi-factor authentication. They work in-branch, remotely, and even when infrastructure varies, adding simplicity while strengthening security.
The Strategic Shift
Identity and access are no longer back-office IT concerns. They’re business risks, reputational tests, and measures of operational maturity. Biometrics offer a simple, secure, and scalable answer to the question of trust.
With IDEMIA Public Security, financial institutions gain a unified biometric identity layer for onboarding, compliance, and everyday access, solutions already trusted by some of the world’s most security-conscious banks. The future of banking security isn’t passwords. It’s identity.
