HSBC UK’s voice biometrics system, VoiceID, used within its telephone banking service has prevented almost £400m of customers’ money from falling into the hands of telephone fraudsters in 2019, with the rate of attempted fraud doubling, year-on-year, the bank has announced.

HSBC UK has seen record amounts of fraud identified each month throughout 2019. Not one month went by with less than 1,000 attempted telephone frauds - the highest of which was 1,800 attempts in one month.

At the same time, the bank has seen an increase in the use of Voice ID, currently used by over 2 million active customers. Since the technology has been introduced in the UK, over 29,000 fraudulent calls have been identified, with over £395m worth of customers’ money protected. In 2019, more than 17,000 fraud calls were identified, double the amount in 2018.

The increased activity by fraudsters is thought to be as a result of a significant number of high-profile third-party data breaches, phishing emails and scam text messages that have taken place over the last couple of years.

“The introduction of VoiceID has not only made it much more convenient for customers accessing their accounts, it has also been instrumental in stopping more attempts at telephone fraud than ever before, protecting customers’ money,” said Kerri-Anne Mills, head of Contact Centre and Customer Service at HSBC UK. “We are now enrolling around 16,000 customers in Voice ID each week and the technology continues to be instrumental in the fight against fraud, providing a library of fraudsters’ voice prints to cross check against new incoming calls.”