OCBC Introduces Face Verification At ATMs & It May Replace ATM Cards

Gone are the days where you need to carry around cash everywhere.

Going cashless is the new thing, with even places like many hawker centres adopting this practice.

Though sometimes there are times where you need physical payment, and you need to draw money.

But oh no, you’ve suddenly forgotten your ATM card and have literally no money on you.

Luckily, OCBC about to take the next step and go cardless.

OCBC Introduces Face Verification At ATMs & May Replace ATM Cards

In fact, all you need is your face.

On 18 March, Thursday, OCBC announced its face verification for ATM bank transactions.

Starting on 19 March, Friday, the following OCBC ATMs will have this new feature ready:

• OCBC Tampines Centre Two
• Taman Jurong Shopping Centre
• Great Eastern, Pickering Street
• OCBC Tampines Centre One
• HDB Hub Level 1
• 103 Yishun Ring Road
• OCBC Campus
• Geylang Road 7-Eleven

However, not all features will be available with face-verification yet, starting with balance enquiries for now.

OCBC says that face verification for cash withdrawal will slowly start to roll out from June onwards to the rest of the ATMs.

Which, by the way, sees around two million withdrawals each month.

Mr Sunny Quek, OCBC Bank’s Head of Consumer Financial Services Singapore, said  Singaporeans are keen digital adopters.

“While cash is still a key mode of payment in Singapore, the digital overlay to get cash is very welcomed by consumers.”

How The Process Happens

How it works is pretty simple.

This is done by tapping into Singapore’s National Digital Identity infrastructure, SingPass Face Verification.

To enable face verification, customers need to select their preferred service before entering their NRIC number on the screen.

Then, a prompt will appear, asking them to position their face within a frame on the screen

A specially installed web-enabled camera will take a scan of their face.

The users face is then matched and verified against Singapore’s national biometric database containing the images and identities of 4 million Singapore residents.

Transaction proceeds as per normal afterwards.

Basically: tap service, scan your face and then carry on.

Advancing With Technology

With evolving technology also comes people trying to find loopholes around the system.

OCBC, however, is a step ahead.

The facial scan is so high tech enough that it can detect and block the use of photographs, videos, or masks during the verification process.

And it’s not the first time OCBC has utilised technology to their advantage.

In July 2019, QR cash withdrawals were introduced where you could just scan a QR-code on ATMs using the OCBC Pay Anyone app to withdraw cash.

By 2020, the number of QR-code cash withdrawals grew 88% from the same period the previous year.

July of that year also saw OCBC also allow customers to use SingPass to access digital banking services.

Within six months, more than one million logins to OCBC Bank’s digital banking platforms were performed using SingPass.

Mr Quek feels that face verification will help add more convenience along with present services like QR-code scanning.

Featured Image: OCBC Singapore