The development is being made possible thanks to facial tracking technology, which verifies a selfie against a passport or driving license picture that the bank will hold on record.
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HSBC is allowing its business customers to open new bank accounts by taking a selfie, cutting out the need to visit a branch and verify their identity in person.
He said that he expected the convenience of selfie verification would lead to it being adopted by many customers, as it means they don’t have to go to a local branch to carry out the process.
While the selfie alone is not enough to open a bank account, it is used as part of the identity verification process.
HSBC is not the first in the financial sector to allow customers to use selfies for verification purposes.
Richard Lack, director of sales in EMEA for technology firm Gigya, welcomed HSBC’s increased use of biometrics as a shift away from traditional username and password account registration.
After launching Touch ID and voice recognition for United Kingdom banks earlier this year, HSBC is now rolling out facial recognition to verify the identity of new account holders.
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Lack acknowledged that although nearly all forms of biometric security have their weaknesses they are still preferable to passwords as an authentication mechanism. Not only is it not prone to forgetfulness like the password; it is also more secure.
