BROOKFIELD, Wis.—Fiserv has received a 2016 IDC Financial Insights FinTech Rankings Real Results Award for Customer Engagement.
The company received the honor for pioneering the use of Verifast: Palm Authentication at Gesa Credit Union in Richland, Wash.
The Real Results Awards are published in conjunction with the annual IDC Financial Insights FinTech Rankings, based on 2015 calendar year revenues attributed to financial institutions. Fiserv ranked fourth out of 125 vendors in the latest IDC FinTech rankings.
“We are thrilled to present Fiserv with the IDC Financial Insights FinTech Rankings Real Results Award for the implementation of biometric palm authentication at Gesa Credit Union,” said Karen Massey, senior analyst for banking at IDC. “This implementation demonstrated not only innovation in customer engagement, but also measurable benefits to the credit union and its members.”
The winning initiative centered on a beta program in which Fiserv and Gesa Credit Union worked together to integrate secure palm-vein biometric authentication into the DNA account processing platform from Fiserv. This was the first palm vein authentication solution implemented in a U.S. financial institution, Fiserv said.
Verifast: Palm Authentication from Fiserv leverages Fujitsu’s proven PalmSecure technology, using near-infrared light to capture a user's palm vein pattern and match it against a database of pre-registered customers for authentication, eliminating the need for the customer to present a photo ID or enter an account number. A National Consumer Research Survey conducted by Raddon in April 2016 found that 83% of consumers rated palm authentication somewhat to extremely valuable.
During the beta program, Fiserv and Gesa found that the Verifast solution reduced the time it takes to authenticate a member in the branch by 93%, providing an improved customer experience, more time for personalized interaction, and enhanced security. On a one-to-five point scale, with five being the best, about 99.9% of Gesa members using the solution rated the Palm Vein technology a five on both the registration process and use, Fiserv stated.
“Biometric authentication via palm vein scanning can enhance customer engagement by providing a convenient, fast and highly secure method of identification,” said Chris VanDerStad, senior vice president and chief technology officer, Open Solutions, Fiserv. “As biometrics increasingly becomes part of our daily lives, Fiserv is leveraging these technologies to drive best-in-class results for our financial institution clients and outstanding experiences for their customers.”
Now in its second year, the IDC Financial Insights FinTech Rankings Real Results Awards recognize IT providers that have enabled a genuine, measurable, and future-enabling change at a client financial institution in the worldwide financial services industry, Fiserv explained. It is part of the broader IDC Financial Insights FinTech Rankings program that categorizes and evaluates the top global providers of financial technology based on calendar year revenues from financial institutions for hardware, software and/or services.