Wells Fargo has won a Most Innovative Feature Award for its use of a mobile biometric authentication system developed by Skolkovo resident Speech Technology Center (STC).
The U.S. bank’s mobile app for commercial account customers, which uses STC’s VoiceKey.OnePass solution to make access possible through voice and face recognition, was given the award as part of the 2016 Monarch Innovation Awards organized by Barlow Research Associates, a global banking consultancy.
Screen shots showing Wells Fargo's mobile app for commercial customers and its authentication process.
“Wells Fargo has combined multiple biometric characteristics to deliver a unique solution, significantly improving security while also simplifying the user experience by eliminating the need to remember complex passwords, enter PINs and token codes, and maintain a security token fob for mobile banking access,” Monarch Innovation Awards said in a statement.
“The biometric authentication process takes less than 15 seconds to complete, helping to make the CEO Mobile service easier and faster to use,” the statement said.
The VoiceKey.OnePass combines voice and face recognition by getting the user to simply take a selfie and read aloud a sequence of numbers that appear on the screen. Its creator, the St. Petersburg-based company STC, is a resident of the Skolkovo Foundation’s IT cluster.
“The fact that a system developed by a Skolkovo resident supported by financial grants from the foundation received such a high rating by the experts of the Most Innovative Feature Award is an excellent example of the innovativeness and high commercial potential of Russian developers,” said Sergei Khodakov, head of cybersecurity technologies within Skolkovo’s IT cluster.
“Of course we expect that such recognition will allow the company to strengthen its position in Russia and successfully continue to commercialise its product on the international market,” he added.
The Monarch Innovation Award nominations are judged on uniqueness, stickiness, dependability, ease of use, value and their ‘wow’ factor, the awards' organizers said.
Wells Fargo was also included in Global Finance magazine’s list of the most innovative banks and fintech companies in treasury and transaction processing last year for the mobile biometric authentication app.