Now you can simply look at your OCBC ATM to perform simple transactions

OCBC Bank customers will be able to use face verification to perform account balance enquiries at eight ATMs around Singapore from tomorrow onwards. OCBC said that they plan to roll this feature out to all their ATMs in Singapore as well as extending face verification to cash withdrawals as well.

Sunny Quek, OCBC Bank’s Head of Consumer Financial Services Singapore, said that Singapore consumers, even the elderly, are keen digital adopters.

"With many customers already embracing QR cash withdrawals without having to use an ATM card, face verification will add a layer of convenience to more customers as they access our banking touchpoints."

With the introduction of facial verification, OCBC customers are one step closer to doing away with ATM cards that can be skimmed or stolen. In fact, the bank began allowing customers to withdraw cash from ATMs without their ATM card in mid-2019 using a QR code.

The technology used is based on SingPass Face Verification, Singapore’s national digital identity infrastructure, so it will match against Singapore’s biometric database for Singapore citizens. OCBC first used SingPass for access to their digital banking services in July last year.

To use face verification at an OCBC Bank ATM, customers select the ATM service they want before entering their NRIC number on the ATM screen.

They will then be prompted to position their face within a frame on the screen, while a specially installed web-enabled camera takes a scan of their face and verifies in real-time the scanned image against the national biometric database which OCBC Bank’s ATM network is digitally linked to.

Once the facial scan is verified, the customer can proceed with their ATM transaction.

According to the bank, GovTech’s liveness detection will be one form of security to determine the difference between a person and a photograph. Higher risk transactions will also require some form of 2FA authentication.

OCBC Bank says that face verification will be extended to other ATM transactions including cash deposits, funds transfers to other banks, cashcard top-ups and credit card bill payments from next year.