Not carrying ATM card? Check account using facial recognition

[T'^]OCBC customers can look up the balance using feature now, and do cash withdrawals from June

OCBC customers will be prompted to position their face within a frame on the ATM screen, while a Web-enabled camera scans their face and verifies it in real time against the national biometric database. ST PHOTO: ONG WEE JIN
OCBC customers will be prompted to position their face within a frame on the ATM screen, while a Web-enabled camera scans their face and verifies it in real time against the national biometric database. ST PHOTO: ONG WEE JIN

OCBC Bank customers can key in their NRIC number and face a camera to check their account balances at the bank's ATMs, if they wish to do so, starting from today.

The new facial biometrics feature does away with the need to carry an ATM card, which can be skimmed or stolen, the bank said.

For now, the ATMs will be able to perform only account balance inquiries using face verification.

An ATM at OCBC Tampines Centre 2 will offer the service from today, and another, at Taman Jurong Shopping Centre, from next Monday.

Six more will be operating by the end of next week in Pickering Street, OCBC Tampines Centre One, HDB Hub, 103 Yishun Ring Road, a Geylang Road 7-Eleven outlet, and the bank's learning and development centre, OCBC Campus.

The use of biometrics authentication by financial institutions is not new and has been deployed for online financial services and phone banking, said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Said a spokesman: "MAS does not prescribe any specific technology to be used for authentication and financial institutions are encouraged to innovate to meet their customers' needs for security and convenience while ensuring that MAS' requirements on strong security controls, data confidentiality and responsible use of data are met."

The face verification feature will be progressively extended for cash withdrawals at all 550 OCBC ATMs here from June, and to transactions such as cash deposits, fund transfers, CashCard top-ups and credit card bill payments from next year.

OCBC is tapping Singapore's National Digital Identity infrastructure and Singpass Face Verification technology to securely verify customers.

Customers can select a service they want before entering their NRIC number on the ATM screen. They will then be prompted to position their face within a frame on the screen, while a Web-enabled camera scans their face and verifies it in real time against the national biometric database which OCBC's ATM network is digitally linked to.

The feature is embedded with security properties to prevent fraud, including liveness-detection technology that blocks the use of photographs, videos or masks.

Mr Sunny Quek, head of OCBC's consumer financial services, said: "With many customers already embracing QR cash withdrawals without having to use an ATM card, face verification will add a layer of convenience to more customers as they access our banking touch points."

DBS Singapore country head Shee Tse Koon said its customers have been benefiting from the convenience of facial verification technology since last July.

"DBS will continue to explore ways to expand the use of face verification and emerging technologies in our digital services and self-service machines," he added.

Over 25,000 DBS customers have used the Singpass Face Verification technology to date, with most doing so to securely retrieve their digibank user credentials.

Mr Feixiang He, a senior threat intelligence analyst at cyber-security firm Group-IB, said biometric features are generally harder to abuse. "The combination of NRIC and facial recognition provides a two-factor authentication which further improves the security," he added.

As for concerns that determined criminals may force a victim to an ATM to withdraw money, Mr Jeffrey Kok from information security firm CyberArk said this risk can be mitigated by strong law enforcement and surveillance.

OCBC said it has measures to protect customers and ATM transactions, including closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage, and remote CCTV viewing and video analytics.

Civil engineer Rion Tng, 35 said: "I'll be wary at the start since I've read reports that there were ways to fool Apple's Face ID face-recognition technology."

But nurse Suliha Bivi, 53, said: "With the face recognition feature, it will be more difficult for scammers to break into an account."

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on March 19, 2021, with the headline Not carrying ATM card? Check account using facial recognition. Subscribe