Financial news

Biometric authentication company iProov has forged a partnership with Wultra, a digital banking security provider based in the Czech Republic. Thanks to this collaboration, Wultra can now provide iProov’s biometric solutions suite as part of its portfolio of digital banking solutions.

As attacks on financial service providers continue to evolve, increasing numbers of consumers are calling on them to offer online access to high-risk services including new account enrolment and account reactivation.

In an effort to meet growing demand, many banks work with the likes of Wultra to evaluate best practices in balancing security and convenience at critical points of their end-user lifecycle.

One of the largest challenges banks currently come across is remotely verifying the identity of its consumers, in a way that is easy to use and prevents mid-process dropout.

Raiffeisenbank, the Czech member of Central and Eastern European banking group Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), has implemented iProov’s biometric solution from Wultra to provide its customers with the ability to securely reactivate their bank accounts online at their own convenience, without visiting a physical branch or using additional hardware.

‘Backed by hard data’

Tomáš Rosa, PhD cryptology and biometric competence centre lead, and mathematical security architect at Raiffeiesen Bank, said: “Several factors were instrumental in our decision to implement iProov technology: iProov has been successfully deployed by leading global banks and has achieved the industry’s highest completion rates. This provides us with clear evidence of both its user-friendly qualities and ability to meet increased customer demand.

“During the process, iProov swiftly addressed our questions about biometric authentication performance by completing an in-house statistical review and eased any concerns regarding GDPR and deployment in the cloud.

“Finally, as a security expert with a strong mathematical background equally important to me was the fact iProov’s facial authentication technology was backed by hard data ensuring the solution could be reviewed and, even more critically, trusted.”

‘Banks are hyper-aware of the evolving threat landscape’

Zdeněk Černý, CTO at Wultra, also commented. He said: “Banks are hyper-aware of the evolving threat landscape, and mobile banking apps are becoming a top target for cybercriminals. Points like account creation and rebinding are especially vulnerable to fraud, so increasing the security levels of our product set to help our customers tackle this was a priority for us. iProov’s technology delivers on all fronts and stood out from the RFP process as ‘the real deal’. One of our biggest customers, Raiffeisenbank, already love it and they actively encouraged adding iProov technology to our stack.”

Andrew Bud, founder and CEO of iProov, also commented on the need for new solutions in the space, as threats evolve: “Financial services providers are a prime target for cybercriminals’ most sophisticated attacks. Our recent Threat Report found that AI-based attacks, such as deepfakes, are gaining momentum and basic-level biometric technology is struggling to keep pace.

“iProov’s biometric solutions suite is uniquely able to assure liveness, a key determinant in mitigating AI-based attacks. We are excited to partner with Wultra in their mission to secure and protect leading banks and fintech companies with meaningful security solutions for their internet and mobile apps.”