Making a bank account used to mean taking time off work and visiting your local bank. It meant presenting your driver’s license, passport, and numerous utility bills just to establish your identity. Nowadays, you can easily sort out your banking from the comfort of your couch in Sydney or coffee shop in Melbourne. The face of banking in Australia has totally changed with digital banking.
However, the foundation of digital banking remains the level of trust placed in the system. Financial institutions have to ensure that the person interacting with their system is the true owner of the account. Online identity verification is the reason why Australian banks can offer such a level of security.
From Branches to Apps
Making bank accounts meant the traditional '100 points of identification' method, which required physical interaction with the bank staff. Bank employees would physically verify your documents and match your face with the tiny photograph on your ID card. However, with the rise of smartphones to the status of essential commodities in people’s daily lives, Australian banks had to find a way to make their services available online securely.
The shift to mobile apps meant creating technology that could not only replicate but also exceed the capabilities of their physical staff. Banking apps today use a combination of camera and government data to verify your identity in a matter of minutes.
Anatomy of Online Identity Verification
Document Capture
It begins with taking a photograph of your government-issued ID document. The bank’s application captures the document and searches for unique security elements such as holograms, micro printing, and fonts. The application also captures the text on your driver’s license or passport and automatically cross-checks it with government data to verify the document’s authenticity and validity.
Biometric Checks
Next, the app will verify that your ID is genuine. However, it also has to verify that it is actually your ID. This is done by taking a quick selfie. The face recognition software will then create a mathematical representation of your face by calculating the distance between your eyes, the shape of your jawline, and the shape of your cheekbones. This is then compared to the image on your ID document.
Liveness Detection
Scammers also try to trick the system by holding up a picture or video of the victim on another screen. This is prevented by liveness detection. The app may ask you to blink, smile, or turn your head to the side. The software will then detect the small movements to ensure that it is indeed a live person holding up the phone.
How Artificial Intelligence Catches Fraud
Scammers are always coming up with new ways to get around security systems. However, artificial intelligence and machine learning put financial institutions like ING one step ahead. This is because it is able to look at millions of verification attempts and recognise unusual patterns.
For instance, if an individual uses sophisticated technology to create a deep fake mask or alters the digital code in a picture on an ID document, it will be able to recognise unusual patterns that are not normally seen by the human eye. This is because it learns from every interaction and thus becomes stronger and smarter every single day.
Confidently Managing Your Money
The technology that keeps your financial information safe works behind the scenes. It’s as simple as snapping a few photographs and then going on your way. However, behind the scenes, there are complex layers of artificial intelligence, as well as biometric and database scanning, that keep your financial information safe. As you look for new banking options in Australia, rest assured that your personal identity will be highly secured!
