Santander México is starting biometric registration, will enroll 145,000 customers per month

Mexico City, January 16, 2020.- Banco Santander México has begun the process of registering clients with biometric data, using readers with the highest specifications for fingerprints and facial prints, expecting to register 145,000 customers each month, to reach more than 3.7mn customers enrolled in the first stage, in order to add security elements in face-to-face operations in a first phase and mobile and ATMs in subsequent phases.

Although the first biometric registration operations began with employees in February of last year, Santander has already put into operation more than 9,900 high-tech pieces of equipment in branches to register the biometrics of customers, for which more than 9,200 employees throughout the country have been trained.

Biometric data recording consists of capturing fingerprints (deca-fingerprint) and face (facial geometry) with a sophisticated system whose specifications reach the levels of international immigration services (with FBI-certified equipment), which allows this data to be compared with existing records (such as the national electoral institute list) in order to achieve the full identification of a person, so that this authentication adds an additional security element to banking operations.

The process is very simple, free for the client, and takes approximately seven minutes. The client only needs to be present at the branch, identify himself with their national voter registration, which is validated in an intelligent scanner that checks security locks and even holograms (passport and immigration form in force in the case of foreigners), fingerprints are taken, which are compared with those stored by the INE, and their facial footprint is recorded.

Once an individual has registered their biometrics, these will be used when the client makes a face-to-face operation, such as a balance inquiry, withdrawal for more than 10,000 pesos with a debit card or wishes to open an account. The identification of the client will be done with a comparison with the records previously obtained in the enrollment process described above, which will allow the detection of any attempt to impersonate identity.

In the first stage of biometric registrations, which is set to run until the end of 2020, some 3.7mn customers will be enrolled,of which Santander Mexico currently has the first 28,000 users registered, with whom almost 42,000 biometric verifications are made each month for different bank operations in branches. In the future, new channels such as mobile phones and ATMs will be incorporated, which could result in more than 70mn biometrically verified operations annually.

In total, for the implementation of the capture and management of customer biometric data, Santander Mexico will be investing about 1bn pesos (US$53mn) in the next five years. It should be noted that, in addition to being encrypted with the most sophisticated algorithms in the market, biometric data is stored separately from the bank data of each client, and it is only during the consultation of their operations that these data are crosschecked and then disappear.

Santander Mexico will be the first country for the group to use the facial fingerprint, and the second to use fingerprints after Brazil, biometrics that add to the use of voiceprints which have been used since 2013 by Santander México for telephone operations.

The verification of biometric identity has been a parameter established by the authority in face-to-face operations, and its entry into force is contemplated for March 30, 2020, however Banco Santander has also chosen to form a biometric database provided in the official regulatory bank memorandum, as a means of authenticating clients in other channels, which will also improve the customer experience and add confidence to its operations.