Transamerica taps Nuance for voice biometrics

Financial services provider Transamerica has adopted Nuance Communications’ biometrics technology that uses a customer’s voice for authentication.

Customers enrolled in the service may say, “At Transamerica, my voice is my password” to securely access their accounts without providing any further passwords, PINs, security questions or confirmations, Transamerica said in a May 1 press release.

Nuance, whose biometrics technology USAA already uses for its digital assistant leveraging voice or facial features, developed Transamerica Voice Pass analyzing more than 100 physical and behavioral voice characteristics to identify and verify individuals. Voice Pass verifies a Transamerica customer’s voice against a unique “voiceprint” it keeps on file, and provides account access if there’s a match, Transamerica said in the release.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

For authenticating accounts, voice biometrics is 80% faster than PINs, passwords and security questions, according to Transamerica.

“Transamerica’s Voice Pass with Nuance’s voice biometrics and natural language understanding provide a unique balance of convenient, conversational and secure experiences right from a customer’s first point of contact,” said Robert Weideman, Nuance’s executive vice president and general manager of enterprise.