Safaricom shop at the village market. [Photo/the-star.co.ke]
Safaricom has introduced voice biometric system aimed at reducing fraud and helping its customers to reduce incidents of identity theft.
The system, dubbed Jitambulishe, will allow customers to access Safaricom services such as resetting M-Pesa PIN and PUK requests through a faster and less intrusive vetting process.
A pre-recorded registration process will be done by the telco to make the feature functional.
Safaricom’s system will capture customer’s voice patterns to create a unique “voiceprint and store it as a secure string of numbers and characters, attributes that will help identify and verify callers when they reach out for customer care”.
“We are redesigning our customer care approach to remain in line with shifting trends in the market and to take advantage of emerging technologies.The introduction of voice biometrics will be a major step towards reducing fraud and identity theft, providing us with ways to serve our customers even better,” said Safaricom director of strategy Joseph Ogutu.
“Our contact centre agents spend a greater portion of their call time verifying customers over the phone. The introduction of this service will ensure that customers get faster and more accurate services."
"We anticipate that the number of fraud incidents shall also reduce as a result.”