Barclays to introduce voice recognition technology

The system operates by storing a recording of a customer’s voiceprint. After the initial recording, future calls will involve a brief conversation with a customer service agent, during which voice biometrics are verified.

The pioneering system, which is powered by the voice specialists Nuance, is expected to be rolled out to the bank’s 12 million retail customers at the beginning of 2015. So far, the technology has been tested by Wealth, the private banking division of Barclays.

According to Ashok Vaswani, chief executive of Barclays personal and corporate banking, the new system reduced the time it takes customers to verify their identity.