No PIN needed for NAB phone banking

The fuss over the security of remote banking has largely faded as a consumer issue but some banks continue to take an interest in extending the options to better secure transactions.

National Australia Bank has this month introduced biometric voice verification for its telephone banking customers.

Finextra reported that following an internal pilot involving 2000 branch staff in May, the speech security function was now available to NAB's 3.3 million personal banking customers.

Customers calling the bank's contact centre can now register their voice pattern, which NAB says is harder to steal than a password or PIN, improving authentication.

ABN Amro was the first bank in the world to introduce an equivalent service.