Preventing Bank Fraud Through Biometrics

ATM Security Beyond PINs and Cards

Where there is money, there are motives and opportunities for theft. Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are particularly vulnerable targets — found all over and usually unattended in evening hours. Pin codes are often the only form of protection for ATMs, but they can be easily stolen or forcibly obtained.

Biometric fingerprint scanners have become the norm in some countries, quickly verifying the identity of the account holder and allowing them to complete their transactions without incident. However, just as in healthcare, biometric scanners used in banking need to work — without fail — on all types of people and under all kind of conditions (wet, dry, hot and cold). Additionally, they need to detect “liveness” and thwart against commonly used spoofs. Utilizing HID multi-spectral imaging (MSI) biometric scanners to reliably and conveniently identify customers and employees, many institutions have successfully managed to reduce fraud on a large scale. These include:

• The deployment of over 115,000 multi-spectral fingerprint sensors in Brazil, protecting billions of ATM transactions per year
• The securing of pension payments for over one million elderly citizens by financial institutions in Chile and Argentina
• The virtual elimination of employees using fake fingerprints to defraud time and attendance applications in some of Brazil’s largest government agencies

For more information on this use case, check out our white paper, Trusted Identities: Solving Fraud in Banking.