Sber Adds Biometric Payment Confirmation to Smart Displays
Sberbank’s smart display can now use voice and visual biometrics to confirm financial transactions and purchases. The SberPortal smart display and SberBox Top camera set-top box don’t need passwords anymore for confirming payments, just their face and voice pattern stored on their devices, with the option of adding others to the list of approved users.
AI ID
The biometric payment confirmation aims to simplify making payments and speed up the checkout process for those making purchases with Sber’s smart devices. The setup process connects a user’s account to their debit or credit cards and personalizes who can use them based on their face and voice. The device will remember names and voices, with confirmation passed through the voice assistant in the Sber mobile app. SberDevices had the voice biometrics system in place, while the facial confirmation was designed in partnership with VisionLabs. After the setup, a user can place items in a cart and when they check out, they will be asked to look into the camera and say a six-digit code. If the face and voice match, the payment is complete. Should the biometrics not work for some reason, the user can get a QR code sent to their mobile device to show the camera and confirm who they are that way.
“We are consistently improving our devices and technology in order to streamline the customer journey as much as possible and make using our devices simple and convenient. Face and voice payment confirmation on Sber devices equipped with a camera is genuine know-how for household devices,” SberDevices CEO Konstantin Kruglov said in a statement. “It is a level of convenience and, at the same time, protection that no smart speaker or conventional media set-top box offers. At the same time, we continue to prioritize privacy and security. The recognition technology runs onboard the device, and you can delete facial recognition vectors without a trace or remove saved bank cards at any time.”
Sber Commerce
The biometric payment system is part of Sber’s growing voice commerce features for its devices. The company recently expanded its voice commerce to whole new departments of home goods and other products. Sber’s Salute voice assistant will take orders for SberMarket by asking the voice assistant for the type of product like bread or soap or for specific brands and versions of products. That option builds on the program to sell unique beverages exclusively through Salute in a deal with Unilever earlier this year. Sber has been rushing out all kinds of new features for its voice assistant, integrating it into more and more of its other services ever since releasing the SberPortal smart display and the SberBox TV set-top streaming device simultaneously with Salute last year. The voice assistant and its three distinct voices and personalities have interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin at an AI conference hosted by Sber.
The voice assistant has been building its banking functions at a steady clip, too, adding the ability to exchange currency and move around and invest pensions for users with the right kind of accounts. Sber’s interest and investments in voice commerce is a logical outgrowth of the rising popularity of voice commerce worldwide. Juniper released a report this month estimating that voice assistants will handle $19.4 billion in transactions by 2023, a 320% growth from what’s expected this year.
Follow @voicebotai Follow @erichschwartz
