Maybank launches award-winning mobile banking service with biometric authentication
Maybank is pioneering the use of biometric authentication in mobile banking through its 'Quick Touch' service on its Maybank2u app, allowing customers to access their accounts and check their balances, using their fingerprints for authentication. The step is said to speed up the time taken to access these services by 70%, and has been awarded the title of "Best Mobile Banking Initiative" at the Asian Banking and Finance Awards 2015.
KUCHING: Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank), the country’s top banking group by assets has pioneered the use of biometric authentication in mobile banking with the introduction of its ‘Quick Touch’ service on the Maybank2u app.

Maybank in a statement yesterday said the service allows customers to access their accounts and check their balances using fingerprints on their mobile devices for authentication.

The new service, Maybank claimed which is the first of its kind in Malaysia, is part of the group’s strategy to strengthen its offering in the digital space and meet the demands from customers for increasing convenience and transaction speed.

The new biometric authentication speeds up access to accounts by some 70 per cent faster than the traditional mode of keying in the conventional six-digit personal identification number (PIN).

Maybank’s Community Financial Services Malaysia head Hamirullah Boorhan said the introduction of ‘Quick Touch’ is a reflection of Maybank’s commitment to leverage cutting edge technology to enhance customer experience.

“It is part of our efforts to bring to the market a convenient way for customers to check their account balance in real time of just two seconds,” he said.

Hamirullah added that on average, more than 500,000 balance inquiries are performed monthly and this would require customers to key in their PIN each time they need to access their account.

“Given this large proportion, we felt it was critical to enhance our customer experience by offering our users speedier access to their accounts,” he explained.

“To this end, we have invested in one of the latest innovations for mobile devices, namely biometric technology, to offer them this added convenience,” he said.

Hamirullah further added that the new service would enable Maybank to entrench its leadership in digital banking and enrich its electronic-banking platform for customers benefit.

Maybank revealed that ‘Quick Touch’ is currently available on iOS devices that support biometric capability such as the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3.

The banking group noted the facility is also available on the latest Apple watch that enables M2U mobile application from Apple Store.

Quick Balance on Apple Watch not only provides customers with account balances, but alerts the customer through the use of colours on the credit card outstanding balance.

For instance, if the outstanding balance is above a certain threshold, the colour on the watch screen will change to red, whereas if the outstanding balance is low, it will be green in colour.

Quick Balance has registered more than 100,000 new users since its introduction five months ago, it said.

“With the introduction of ‘Quick Touch’, we are targeting to grow our Quick Balance user base by 20 per cent by year end,” Hamirullah believed.

The facility has also been recognised as The Best Mobile Banking Initiative at the Asian Banking and Finance Award 2015, held in Singapore recently.

Meanwhile, Maybank observed the number of active users who use the full Maybank2u App exceeds 2 million.

Maybank disclosed that the banking group’s Maybank2u portal has over 7.8 million registered users who access the banking portal via personal computers and mobile devices.