Brazil | Enterprise
Situation
HSBC, one of the top 5 banks in Mexico, is committed to becoming a digital leader in the country. Currently, more than half of the population do not have a bank account, and over 70 percent of transactions are still cash-based.
Challenge
Mexican banks are required to facilitate biometric identity checks for their customers who want to open a new account or process some transactions by verifying against the central database for a fee. These steps are fundamental in complying with the country’s Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism Rules (AML/CFT). Moreover, banks are charged every time they have to perform identity authentication.
HSBC incurs unnecessary costs for going through the whole due diligence procedures. To forgo these fees, it needed a new system that would allow it to recheck a customer’s identity without having to access official registries.
Our Solution
Innovatrics provided its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) to the bank through HSBC’s local partner, Karalundi. Its role was twofold: the first was to collect and search client data to prevent identity fraud and manage risks, and the second was to identify employees via fingerprints. The whole project only took half a year to fully materialize.
By implementing Innovatrics ABIS, HSBC can adhere to Mexico’s strict banking regulations and only pay for the authentication once. After checking an identity against the national database, the bank stores the information into its own ABIS. Therefore, if checking is warranted another time, there is no need to go back to the national ABIS that charges per transaction.
Looking back on the project, Innovatrics Spain and LATAM Business Development Director, Oscar Flores, commented: “We were absolutely delighted to win the project, not only because it’s a worldwide well-known bank but they also had a proof of concept going on live side by side with another major biometrics provider. And Innovatrics won on the spot.”
Result
HSBC Mexico now has a high-availability, high-throughput system, boasting industry-leading speed and accuracy when matching fingerprints. The system is able to enroll 30 thousand people per day with up to 10 fingerprints per person. It’s also able to easily verify 180 people each minute.
The new system opens new possibilities regarding onboarding and verifying new customers remotely through smartphones. The smoother the onboarding process, the more likely the client completes it and becomes a full-fledged customer.
In countries as large and diverse as Mexico, the implementation of Innovatrics’ biometric solution can be a key competitive advantage for HSBC in attracting potential customers. The innovations undertaken cement the position of HSBC as a digital banking leader.
