THE BIOMETRIC SYSTEMS (FINGERPRINTS,

VOICE, IRIS) TAKE OFF FOR THE

IDENTIFICATION AND PERSONS' RECOGNITION

BIOMETRIC

TECHNOLOGY
01
04

Banks have much

to gain from
biometrics
HSBCs bid for
biometrics

FINTECH SERIE BY

02
05

Check the identity

of new customers

INFOGRAPHIC

Biometric
technology

innovation edge

03

INTERVIEW

Passwords are
inconvenient and
insecure, and their
end is in sight

01

Banks have much to

gain from biometrics
Julin Firrez is a senior lecturer at the Escuela
Politcnica Superior and a member of the ATVS Biometric Recognition Group at the Autnoma
University in Madrid. A graduate in Communications
Engineering from the Madrid Polytechnic University,
he obtained his doctorate in 2006 with the
Extraordinary Prize, and was a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at Michigan State University between
2007 and 2009. He has just received the 2015 Miguel
Cataln Award for researchers aged under 40.

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

A specialist in biometrics, and

currently traveling between
Japan and China to present his
projects, Julin Firrez has
spent 15 years studying
biometric systems technologies
for speech, face, fingerprint and
written signatures. In 2002 he
began working with the
identification laboratory of the
criminalistics service at the
Head Office of the Guardia Civil,
and has also brought biometrics
to the National Cryptological
Center and Telefnica, and
more recently to Cecabank. A
close contact with these
companies and institutions has
given him an insight into the
real problems and opportunities
of biometric systems.

Is recognizing and identifying

people through biometric
systems the latest fashion?
Quite the reverse the general
perception of biometric systems
is not very positive. People
don't see it as being very useful,
and being unnecessarily
sophisticated. But this type of
systems has been used very
successfully for decades in
limited fields such as forensic
research. It was only about 20
years ago, at the end of the
1990s, when the systems were
first used in large-scale
applications for the general
public, such as in access
controls to buildings and
restricted areas.

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Weren't they useful?

Biometric systems at the time
were poorly perceived for two
reasons. First, back then the
systems were very limited and
not very technologically
advanced in comparison with
the ones we have today. They
were not very ergonomic, and
incapable of dealing with
diversity and difficulty in
relatively uncontrolled
operational environments.
They were not very useful for
the applications for which they
were designed. Rather than
saving time or increasing the
level of security, they were an
inconvenience. In second

place, high hopes excessively

so were invested in these
systems, mostly thanks to
popular culture and because of
ambitious and unrealistic
claims. Both factors led to
major commercial failures in
this type of system. After that,
in the last 15 years users who
are unfamiliar with the
technology, and technicians
with no expertise in this area,
have only naturally been fairly
reluctant to use and deploy this
type of systems.
Has the situation changed?
Currently, the recent and
significant advances in multiple
fields of technology mean that

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

biometric applications are being

deployed ever more widely,
and overcoming the
understandable barriers of
reticence that were so
widespread. Several areas have
seen a substantial development
in recent years: ergonomics
and sensor quality (such as
those included in smartphones
and other tactile devices),
robust recognition algorithms in
realistic and relatively
uncontrolled operational
conditions, and automatic
learning that exploits large
datasets.

Why are banks, companies and governments so interested in

this type of recognition today?
Because they have multiple applications and are of crucial
importance. These technologies will reduce or eliminate
paperwork in many spheres of e-government, in medical records
and legal processes; they will streamline many processes
requiring the authentication of individuals; they will help prevent
internal and external fraud in companies and institutions; they
will make it possible to monitor and certify the skills obtained by
students in distance learning, and much more. The present and
future of these technologies is very promising.

Is this the end of passwords?

The aim of biometric systems is not to substitute the current
processes of authentication, either cards, keys or passwords.
The target most researchers working in these technologies are
aiming for at the moment is to improve some aspects of the
current authentication processes by supplementing them in
some cases, replacing certain processes in others, and
incorporating new processes which were previously impossible.
FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Will biometric technology live

alongside passwords?
Rather than thinking of doing
away with passwords, it's more
a case of developing a
complete authentication system
that uses a password, and then
improve one or several aspects
of this system (security, speed,
convenience, ease of
management, maintenance

costs and so on) by introducing

biometric systems.
With this focus in mind, I think
we'll see the coexistence of new
password-free developments,
like unlocking cellphones based
on fingerprints or facial images,
with a multitude of systems that
continue using passwords or
keys to a certain degree,
perhaps supplemented with

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

some biometric information.

The question is not whether

biometrics can eliminate
passwords, but whether the use
of biometrics can be of help in
the current world of passwords.
The response to this question is
definitely yes, and to a great
extent.

What is the most secure

biometric recognition method
(voice, veins, iris.)?
All the biometric recognition
methods existing today have
advantages and drawbacks
from voice and handwriting
through to irises and the
pattern of veins on the hand.
Specifically, if we're talking
about security, this necessarily
implies an attacker who wants
to gain illicit access. Before
comparing biometric features
with others in the area of
security, we would need to
specify the model of attacker,
through questions such as: how
does the attack occur? how
hard is it for the attacker to

achieve his or her aim? The

suitability of one biometric
feature or another will depend
on the application in question,
the scenario of use, the model
of attacker who wishes to
violate the system, and the
resources at his or her disposal.
There are several current
developments that aim to
homogenize these models and
come up with a standard for
considering a biometric system
secure, and for its level of
security. One such is the
Common Criteria initiative, to
which our group is contributing
thanks to the European project
BEAT (Biometrics Evaluation
and Testing).

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

One feature can be compared

with another based on factors
such as usability, economic
cost, durability and so on. All
these factors, once the
application and scenario have
been determined, will point to
one biometric feature or
another, or a combination of
several, used in a specific way
and with specific sensors, as
being the optimum solution. So
an iris recognition system that
has no protection against
falsification using printed iris
images may be less secure than
a verification system using a
handwritten signature.

What does it contribute to

banks?

keyboard or mouse and pointer

dynamic).

The banking environment is

one of the areas that can
benefit most from recent
advances in biometric systems,
as many of their operations
depend on the reliable
authentication and
management of their
customers' identities. Biometrics
can vastly reduce costs such as
the use and recording of
information on paper or the
prevention and control of a
whole range of fraud.
Specifically, biometric systems
allow the identity of a customer
to be modeled both on one-off
inputs (a handwritten
signature), and in an ongoing
way in the medium and long
term (for example with a

The detection of anomalous

behavior through these models
is a good way of filtering
possible fraud. Today's
technology already allows a full
remote relationship with the
customer by making use of
biometric features such as face
and voice recognition for the
ongoing monitoring of the user,
or a handwritten signature on a
touch terminal for
authentication with legal
validity. The great difference in
this remote scenario compared
to the scenario with a physical
presence lies in the type of
impostor that seeks to violate
the system, the cost of the
attacks, impact, possible
protection...).

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

A greater understanding of
these factors is key to the
success of this type of initiatives
in remote operating
environments. Much research
is currently being done in this
area, and the problem is not
totally resolved. Look at the
results of one of the European
projects in which we have also
been working recently, TABULA
RASA (Trusted Biometrics

Under Spoofing Attacks), for

example.
Which country is most
advanced in its uptake of
biometrics?
All types of countries, from the
United States and Japan to
India and China are investing
heavily in the research and
development of these types of

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

systems, as they are aware of

the present and future benefits
these technologies can provide.
Not only the governments of
these countries, who have
launched programs to fund
research, but also companies
like Google, Facebook,
Microsoft, NEC and Fujitsu are
all making a strong
commitment to this type of
technology.

What sector do you think it

can help most?
As I said before, the banking
sector has yet to tap into the
substantial advantages offered
by these technologies in recent
years, and it has much to gain
from them. They can reduce
the costs related with the
management of identities, fraud
prevention, customer
convenience and the opening
of new customized services
both in person and remotely.
Other sectors that will benefit
vastly from developments in
biometrics include distance
learning (students' uptake of the
course material can be

monitored and their learning

outcomes can be certified as a
result), e-government,
insurance companies, notary
services, courts, medical
registers and health records,
and more). In fact any area in
which it is necessary to
authenticate individuals and
subsequently manage these
identities.
Are privacy and biometrics
compatible?
Yes. Most of the current largescale developments in
biometric systems are very
aware of the importance of
protecting privacy, particularly
in Europe, where the legislation

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

on data protection is clear and

strict.
Many of these biometric
systems do not in fact store (on
the biometric template) the
user's registration information in
an open way, but via encrypted
versions, or with very limited
information which in the most
recent developments are not
even unencrypted for
comparison with other
biometric templates. These
techniques for the protection of
biometric templates are in fact
a red-hot issue in research, and
an area in which my group at
the UAM is also working.

02

Banks face the

challenge of
verifying the identity
of new customers
Millennials do not intend to go into a branch in their
lives. They're used to taking out all services online and
want to have the same facility with banks. But, as
highlighted in the BBVA Research article Digital
contracting of financial services: electronic identity as a
key element there is no regulatory framework allowing
banks to remotely verify the identity of new customers.
FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

While Google, Facebook or

Skype need not verify the actual
identity of the person accessing
their services not even
Amazon registering with a
bank is not so easy. The
regulatory framework affecting
registering customers in the
financial sector is not
completely homogeneous
globally. Some countries
prohibit the registration
processes through digital
channels and require a physical

meeting to proceed with

customer identification and
verification of their identity.
Moreover, in those places
where non face-to-face
contracting is permitted, it is
sometimes difficult to establish
mechanisms for verifying
identity in these digital channels
that reveal, unequivocally, who
the customer is," highlights the
Article.

In Mexico, for example, one of

the objectives of the bank in
2016 is to strengthen controls
and in recent months reading
fingerprints has been extended
to identify customers and open
new accounts. As highlighted in
this article in El Universal, with
a customer's fingerprint and
photograph, identity theft is
impossible when the
fingerprints are already
registered.

The security problem is

growing, as highlighted in this
article by BBVA Research:
According to the for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS),
the cost of cybercrime to the
global economy is about $450
billion. In addition, the
Ponemon Institute reports that
in 2013, 43% of US companies
experienced a breach of data
security. Individually, the
greatest risks are identity theft
and loss of confidential
information. The CSIS estimates

that there were 800 million

stolen personal records in the
same year worldwide. In South
Korea, for example, in a
month, over 70% of people
aged between 15 and 65 had
their personal data stolen and
their credit cards were put at
risk. In the US, according to a
2012 survey conducted by the
Bureau of Justice Statistics,
phishing affected 16.6 million
people, at a cost of $24.7
billion in financial losses

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

And how can identification be

guaranteed? As highlighted by
BBVA Research: The regulatory
framework affecting registering
customers in the financial
sector is not completely
homogeneous globally. Some
countries prohibit the
registration processes through
digital channels and require a
physical meeting to proceed
with customer identification
and verification of their identity.
Moreover, in those places
where non face-to-face
contracting is permitted, it is
sometimes difficult to
establish mechanisms for
verifying identity in these
digital channels that reveal,
unequivocally, who the
customer is," highlights the
Article.

Returning to Millennials and the

previous generation, "a survey
by Telstraglobal on generations
X and Y (those born between
1966-1976 and 1977-1994,
respectively) indicates that
more than half of respondents
rate trust as the most
important factor of choice
when selecting a financial
services provider. One in five
people would share their DNA
to help protect their financial
and personal information, and
up to one in two people would
be willing to pay for a mobile
identity. In addition, less than
half are satisfied with their
institution's security, more than
a third have experienced
phishing, 40% of victims
believed it was the institution's
fault and 65% is likely to leave

FINTECH SERIE FEBREUAY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

the bank as a consequence of

this."
2016 promises to be the
breakout year for biometrics.
And banks cannot be left
behind.

03/INTERVIEW
Passwords are
inconvenient and
insecure, and their
end is in sight"
Emilio Martnez, CEO of Agnitio, the company specializing
in voice biometric systems, highlights the benefits of
"voiceprints" for personal authentication.
FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

How did Agnitio start?

AGNITIO started in 2004 as a
spin-off from the Madrid
Polytechnic University. A
group of the signal treatment
department had worked for
years with the Guardia Civil
police force to develop a voice

biometric system that would

enable them to identify
criminals and terrorists from
their voices. This system was
known from other European
police forces and sparked
considerable interest. The
founding members negotiated
a contract with the university
for the transfer of the
technology, and that's how
AGNITIO came about.
What's the profile of the
employees?
92% of the employees are
engineers or graduates in
areas of advanced technology.
This is an extremely
technological company with a
very high component of
R+D+i.

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

How many countries do you

operate in and what sector
interests you most or is most
interested in your services?
Agnitio has facilities in over 40
countries around the world.
The geographical areas where
we have the greatest presence
are eastern Europe, Latin
America and the United States.
In the US we have a subsidiary
that sells to and supports our
customers in North America.
With regard to market
segments, our presence is
above all in the government
security sector (police and
intelligence corps and defense
organizations), followed by the
financial sector.

What are the features of

biometric voice verification?

be identified with an extremely

high degree of accuracy.

When someone speaks, as well

as the information they transmit
in the form of words, the
unique features of their vocal
tract the larynx, the nasal
cavity, the palate and so on
make an imprint on the sound
waves. This voiceprint is
independent of the language
the person is speaking, the
phrases they're saying, or the
individual's state of mind. Card
technology is capable of
extracting this information and
storing it in the form of a
numerical voice imprint. When
an unknown person is speaking
on the phone, for example, that
voice can be compared with
the stored voiceprint, and
allows the person speaking to

Do they use complex and

expensive tools?
The system is purely software.
In other words, the voice can
be recorded with any
microphone and there's no
need for any special IT
processing system. Normal
servers and computers are

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

used. What's complex is the

software for processing the
signal highly complex
mathematical algorithms
efficiently programmed to
respond in fractions of a
second with today's processors.
The cost depends on the size
of the project, measured in
number of voiceprints that are
to be used and/or the number
of parallel processes that our
technology is going to use.

These systems are not

accessible to individual
consumers because of their
cost, but are acquired and
implemented by government
organizations and financial
institutions.
How has the technology
advanced in this field?
The study of voice biometrics
began in the 1990s, but it
wasn't until the beginning of the
21st century that we saw the
first systems that could be
efficiently used. The UPM
delivered the prototype of our
forensic identification system to
the Guardia Civil in 2000. Since
then several pioneering
research groups of which we
are proud to be one have
gradually improved and
modified the algorithms to

obtain better results. Our

products are already now in the
fourth generation of the
technology.
Along with the improvements in
accuracy, the calculations can
now be done much faster and
with fewer resources. Our
earliest call-monitoring systems
with voice biometrics required
fifty times more processors
than they do today.
What advantages does it have
compared to other
identification methods
(fingerprints, iris)?
The various biometric models
are not in competition, but
complement each other in a
multi-factor authentication
environment. When we come
near a person we use all our

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

sensors to identify them: their

faces, their way of walking,
their voice and so on. In the
same way, in the future people
will be automatically identified
using all the possibilities
available on the devices.
Sometimes some will be more
important than others. Voice is
very important in situations of
remote authentication when
you can't see or "touch" the
person in telephone
communications for example.
Are they more efficient?
The sensors needed to make a
voice authentication are
microphones, and today we all
carry these around in our
pocket (in our cellphones) or
we have them on our
computer. In terms of cost this
makes it much more efficient

than a fingerprint or iris

recognition, which needs a
special sensor requiring special
care. And it's also the most
natural system. Everyone's used
to talking, to speaking on the
phone. It's not something that's
considered intrusive, unlike
taking a photo of your eye or
taking your fingerprint.
What's more we're increasingly
using our voices to interact with
our surroundings. In the future
we'll communicate with a whole
range of devices in our cars
and homes and at work, by
using our voices to give
commands and obtain
information. Using our same
voice as a way of authenticating
ourselves will become more
natural than using any other
biometric model. We'll identify
ourselves with the same

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

phrases we use when we to talk

with virtual assistants.
What can it provide for a
bank?
Voice biometric applications in
the world of finance are only
just beginning. Perhaps the
application with the best return
on investment today is fraud
detection in call centers. The
use of blacklists of voices of
people who have committed
fraud can be used to filter
incoming calls. This is having a
massive effect on preventingthe
proliferation of organized gangs
who used the call center to
commit fraud or obtain
information with which to
commit fraud through other
channels.

Voice authentication also

reduces fraud and makes the
user experience on the
telephone or mobile channel
much faster and more userfriendly.
How?
Multichannel systems can be
deployed that combine

authentication in the Bank's

different channels: telephone,
mobile, Internet, video-chat,
social networks and so on. It
can also be used to sign
documents using the voice.
Customers can use their voice
to accept a contract, and this
voice converted into a
voiceprint can be used as the
signature for the document.

This way a customer can open

a bank account via only the
Internet and/or telephone
channel without having to go to
the branch office.

Of course many of these

advances must pass through
regulatory filters and be
accompanied by other security
and control systems.
In the case of a physical
presence, a handwritten
signature is normally used as
authentication when making a
transaction. And in many cases
it includes the comparison of an
identity document with a
photograph. These procedures
also have their weak points
when the comparison is done
by people who are not expert in
handwriting or in document
recognition. As far as I know
there's no comparison of false
positives between physical
presence systems and
biometric models, but I'm sure
there would be no surprises,
and particularly in the case of

very well planned attacks.

Is it very difficult to copy a
voice?
Voices can be recorded and
reproduced later in attempt to
imitate the legitimate user. This
is why the measures to prevent
these recorded attacks (antispoofing in biometric slang) are
very important in any
implementation that does not
involve an agent speaking to
the person on a direct line.
Agnitio has several patented
systems that guard against
these attacks using very
sophisticated technology that
detects the
recording/reproduction cycle
and compares it to the direct
use of the voice.
It is impossible today to

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

generate a voice which so

closely resembles someone's
voice that it can deceive the
system. Both professional
imitators and voice synthesis
systems can easily be detected
by our software.

Do you believe that man-in-the-middle attacks

are more dangerous for voice systems, and is it
easier to obtain a voice sample than one from
another part of the body?
MITM attacks are normally related with encrypted
communication between two systems. This occurs
in voice biometrics when the communication takes
place via the IP network and not the telephone
channel. In these cases, protecting the voiceprint
by correctly encrypting it is an additional problem
to be resolved by systems integrators, to avoid the
possibility of these voiceprints (and digital or facial
biometrics) being intercepted and changed. This is
why voice biometrics in particular encrypted
voiceprints (not the voice itself) is neither more
nor less likely to suffer attack by MITM.
However, the voice is often used as authentication
via a different channel (out of band authentication).
Using a brief telephone call on a previously agreed
phone number and making the user say a certain
phrase is the most convenient and secure way of
making an out-of-band authentication.
FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Will biometric systems do

away with passwords?
I'm convinced that the end of
passwords is in sight, at least as
a basic authentication tool.
Companies, banks and online
retailers cant go on torturing
their customers by making
them remember secure
passwords that need to be
frequently changed. Today an
average user can have as many
as 60 passwords, with 20 being
the average in a European
country. Some studies indicate
that ten of them are used on a
daily basis. And of course to
keep them safe they have to be
long, contain uppercase and

lowercase symbols, and be

frequently changed! That's
impossible to maintain.

What are the advantages of

biometric verification by voice
compared to passwords?

There's no doubt that

biometrics is one of the ways in
which this problem is going to
be resolved. It will be assisted
by other security technologies
to ensure that the entire
process is secure and that the
security is sufficiently
dimensioned for the information
it's protecting. I'm convinced
that sooner or later we'll
perhaps have just a few very
secure passwords that we won't
need to use very often, and
which will only be used as
backup systems in extreme
cases.

Passwords are impossible to

remember when they're even
remotely secure. And they're
also easy to steal or find out.
They have the worst of both
worlds: they're inconvenient
and not very secure. Multimodal
biometric verification is both
convenient for the user and
extremely secure. It can be
flexibly adapted to the
environment.

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Which country is the most

advanced?
The use of voice biometrics in
governments is more advanced
in Europe than in the United
States for several historic
reasons. However the
implementation in the financial
sector is more advanced in the
United States.
What are the next challenges
for Agnitio?

The most important challenge

for any company at the
forefront of a technology sector
is to stay ahead like the Queen
of Hearts in Alice in
Wonderland, who had to keep
running to stay in the same
place. In other words, the
challenge is to continue with
the work of research into new
algorithms in order to improve
both the accuracy, speed and
the size of the systems. Agnitio
is now in the fourth generation
of voice identification

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

technology. We're now working

on the fifth generation, which
will be much more robust
against environmental noise,
have spectacular improvements
in accuracy in short speech,
and be able to learn to
recognize users very fast over
time. These are some of the
requirements for authentication
in the cloud services that well
be seeing on a massive scale in
the coming years.

04
HSBC's bid for
biometrics
The bank and First Direct offer their 15 million customers
biometric banking software for accessing their accounts
online and by phone using their fingerprint or voice.
Fifteen million customers identified through their voice and
fingerprints. This is the goal set by HSBC, which is extending its
bid for biometrics in the United Kingdom. HSBC and First Direct
customers who use telephone banking and mobile apps can
access their accounts through a system that checks their voice
and fingerprint. The bank believes that the software will help it
address the issue of forgotten passwords.

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Francesca McDonagh, HSBC's

retail banking and wealth
management manager,
describes the decision as the
largest deployment of voicebased biometric security
technology in the United
Kingdom. The launch of voice
and touch ID makes it even

easier for customers to access

their bank accounts, using the
safest form of password: the
body, she concludes in this
article published in The
Guardian.
First Direct will start registering
customers for voice

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

identification in the coming

weeks and HSBC will follow suit
in summer. Customers who
decide to use this option must
register their voiceprint and
will never again have to use a
phone password or PIN.

The English newspaper mentions other

examples of banks that are embracing
biometrics.

Barclays launched its voice recognition software

for its 300,000 wealthiest customers in the United
Kingdom in 2013. One year later it said that this
technology had been so successful that it would
extend it to its 12 million retail banking customers.
Barclays intends to offer them voice recognition
by the end of this year, since it has been
incredibly popular among its wealthiest
customers, who used to spend 1.5 minutes
checking their identity and can now do so in
less than ten seconds.
Lloyds Banking Group has said that it is
considering including Amazon Echo in its online
banking services, a voice-controlled hands-free
device that is only available in the United States.
The bank claims that 360,000 blind or visually
impaired people in the United Kingdom could
benefit from voice recognition.
FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Royal Bank of Scotland says that

touch ID has been a great
success following its launch last
year, with over one million
customers now logging in using
their fingerprint.
In the United States, several banks
have tested biometric technology

and Citi has around 250,000

customers who use voice
recognition authentication.
Touch ID is available on all Apple
mobile devices for HSBC and First
Direct. Customers have to
download the mobile banking app
and follow the instructions for
associating their fingerprint.
And yes, it works even if you have
a cold. Joe Gordon, HSBC's
customer contact manager in the

United Kingdom, says that voice

recognition works even if you
have a cold. In the BBC Today
program he claimed that we will
be able to deal with people with a
cold or with slight handicaps.
Things like the size of our mouth
or the vocal tract don't change.
Neither does the rhythm or
accent when a person has a
slight cold.

FINTECH SERIE FEBRERY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Nuance Communication is
supplying the voice biometric
technology that cross checks
more than 100 unique
identifiers, including behavioral
features such as speed, rhythm
and pronunciation, and physical
aspects like the shape of the
larynx, the nasal tract and the
nasal passage.

According to a YouGov survey

published by HSBC, the British
believe that, along with voice
and touch, the heart beats, the
hair and even the saliva could
be used as passwords in the

future. According to the survey,

38% of people use the same
password for most of their
accounts, while 55% say that
they rarely update their
passwords. 78% of the 2,038

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

adults surveyed were sure that

their body was the only thing
that could be used as a
password, and 74% felt that it
would become the default
password in the future.

05/INFOGRAPHY
Biometric
technology
The boom of biometric devices
is gaining momentum,
positioning themselves firmly in
the security, monitoring and
control solutions market.

Share in Pinterest

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Identification vs Verification

Determines an individuals
identity. The biometric data
are compared against all
the data held in the
database.

Confirms an individuals
identity by comparing a
simple with one or more
templates obtained
previously.

Perceptions of authentication

61%

40%

Belive that biometric authentication is

as safe as passwords.

Would like to use digital fingerprint

scanning to Access their accounts.

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Biometric solutions
Iris

Face
recognition

Voice
recognition

Iris
Captures an infrared picture of the persons eye which is
processed to obtain the spectral information of the iris.
Face recognition
The faces features are obtained using a low-resolution camera.
Voice recognition
The voices features are based on the shape and
size of the appendages used to crate the sound.

Fingerprint

Fingerprint
A map of the fingerprints peaks and troughs is registered
using optical, termal and/or ultrasound technology.

Signature

Signature
Recording of the act of signing on a piece of paper or tablet.
The movement, not the image, is recorded.

Vascular

Vascular
An infrared image of the skin is taken to detect the veins
and a map of their distribution is obtained.

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

Applications on the market

25% Banking $ finance

20% Electronics
17% Travel
15% Government
12% Defens
11% Others

Uses of biometric authentication

Digital print

59%

Fingerprint
Iris

30%

Face recognition

9%
1%

Others

1%

FINTECH SERIE FEBRUARY 2016 www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/en

share
LASTEST ISSUES

SERIE
FINTECH BY
innovation edge

BBVA Innovation Center

creates the Fintech Serie By
Innovation Edge to keep
informed about the financial
innovation trends with its
milestones, analysis, cases
studie, interviews with experts
and infographics to display the
data that describe each of
these trends.

The advance of bitcoin and

payments

A new concept in the world

of startups

The takeoff of emerging companies

in a competitive world

Easy, quickly and very efficiently

are the keys of personal
management tools (PFM)

sguenos:

Regstrate

para estar al da
de las ltimas
tendencias

centrodeinnovacionbbva.com

centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/innovation-edge

BBVA no se hace responsable de las opiniones publicadas en este documento.