Mountain America Credit Union recently became the first credit union to offer dual biometric logins—fingerprint and eye print—to members via its mobile banking app.
"We like to attend industry conferences to look for new, innovative technology. Touch ID was largely emerging, but we didn't want to limit the offering to the 10% of our users [with Apple devices that come with Touch ID]," said Shelby Peterson, manager of product strategy-digital banking strategy and product team at MACU. "We wanted a technology that worked on a wider range of mobile devices."
Peterson and her team began a search and discovery process in October 2014. By April of the following year, the West Jordan, Utah-based MACU rolled out EyeVerify ID.
"First, we had to ensure that the Eyeprint ID technology would work with ours, so we did a proof of concept. After that we did internal evaluations to ensure that the product was ready to roll out to our members," said Peterson. "EyeVerify has been very supportive and great to work with – from the time we initially met and continuously along the way."
The Kansas City, Mo.-based EyeVerify ID's technology reads the unique pattern of veins in a person's eyes as well as other micro features in and around the eye. This creates a digital key equal to a 50-character complex password. Peterson said it's more than 99.99% accurate.
EyeVerify ID, along with MACU's existing finger print reader, can be used on iPhone 5s and newer, iPad Air 2 and newer and iPad Mini 3 and newer. Additionally, it also interfaces with Android devices with fingerprint readers such as Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4.
The way it works is that the scanner reads an individual's two distinct eye prints. Peterson said the initial enrollment process takes less than a minute and captures the eye print on a smartphone or tablet camera. "After that, logging in using Eyeprint ID is as easy as taking a selfie."
While the dual biometric offering is considered progressive and "cool," it does not remove the need for a traditional password.
"It still requires the user to tie a password to the biometric; however, it does allow the user to utilize the biometric login instead of typing in a password," said Peterson. "Biometrics is given as an option to authenticate but is not required; we want to give our members the choice."
Eye Contact
From an implementation perspective, Peterson said the process was simple. "We had to integrate EyeVerify's software development kit and build our own front-end/biometric screens and some back-end management tools," said Peterson. "We utilized the EyeVerify screens within validation of identity."
With more than 500,000 members, the $4.8 billion MACU attracted more than 10,000 members to the new service in the first two months after a soft launch. "The biometric solution was put in place for added security and convenience," Peterson said, adding that updated "efficiency data" and member adoption rates were not yet available.
While the EyeVerifyID was beta tested internally for several months before it was opened to membership, Peterson said formal training for MACU's 1,597 employees, 65 of whom are tech-focused, wasn't required.
"The technology is very easy to use and quite intuitive," said Peterson. "However, we did provide information to all employees via a company announcement that encouraged them to try the technology during the beta testing period."
As the first adopter in the credit union space, Peterson has advice for other credit unions looking to offer these technologies.
"Know what your objectives are for adding biometrics," she said. "Do your homework and don't be afraid to ask questions."
