MINSK, 23 October (BelTA) – Belarusian banks will be allowed to identify their clients using biometric parameters of faces and voices, BelTA learned from Deputy Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) Dmitry Kalechits during the international forum on information technologies in banking BankIT 2018 on 23 October.
The official said: “We are now legislating the ability of banks to perform such biometric identification. Additional tools will be used to identify clients seeking financial services. In addition to passwords and SMS banks send to their clients' phones it will be possible to add additional factors – the face and the voice.” The relevant amendments will be introduced to Belarus president decree No.478 on digital banking technologies.
Speaking when biometric identification will be available, the official noted it depends on how soon the legislation gets amended and how strongly Belarusian banks are interested in the new tools. Plans have been made to amend the presidential decree by the end of the year. A pilot project is being prepared together with two banks and the Belarusian united payment and information system ERIP to test how biometric data can be used to authenticate natural persons in the interbank user identification system and in Belarusian banks. “After that it will be up to the banks to decide how soon they want to implement the new functionality. The basic infrastructure will be created. We intend it will be done in mid-2019. After that banks will have to integrate it into mobile and Internet banking services,” added Dmitry Kalechits.
