ICICI finds its voice within mobile banking sector

ICICI, India’s largest private sector bank has become the nation’s first lender to introduce a voice recognition service for biometric authentication.

The bank has over 33 million customers, all of whom are based in India. When contacting ICICI’s call centre, cardholders only have to use their voice to authenticate themselves, bypassing the lengthy process of entering card numbers and answering security questions. This will make it easier for customers to make faster payments and manage their finances.

‘‘ICICI Bank has always been committed to bringing in new technology and innovation to its customers and the introduction of voice recognition as a means of authentication is an extension of this commitment. Our decision to invest in this new technology was primarily driven by the objective of enhancing the everyday banking experience of our customers,’’ said Ms. Chanda Kochhar, managing director and CEO, ICICI Bank.

This announcement emphasises the firm’s commitment  to ensuring that its customers can make contactless payments through their smartphones. ICICI has recently launched new apps for mobile banking, fully automated and round-the-clock ‘Touch Banking’ branches, tab banking, and banking on Facebook and Twitter. It has also introduced the country’s first contactless debit and credit cards, and ‘Pockets’, India’s first digital bank on a mobile platform.

‘‘We have noticed that the customers, especially those who use smart phones, find it difficult to enter the 16 digit card number and the 4 digit PIN with accuracy and at a reasonable speed. We wanted to offer them a secure and hands-free alternative to the traditional on-screen commands on smart phones,’’ continued Kochhar.

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