At JPMorgan Chase & Co., fingerprints and personalization are key next steps in its retail banking innovation evolution.
Apple TouchID may get all the press, but authentication via fingerprint also exists for Android devices, and the feature will go live for Chase customers on those devices at the end of this month.
The news came via Abhijit Bose, head of digital intelligence at Chase, who delivered a fireside chat at Bank Innovation 2016 in Seattle last week.
Further word on this came from the communications team at the bank:
Fingerprint authentication will be available in Android devices for the Chase Mobile App at the end of March. Chase consumer and business customers with Android devices with fingerprint capability will have an alternate way to log into the Chase Mobile App without having to enter their user ID and password.
The device must be running Android OS version 6 (Marshmallow, currently 3 devices: Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P & HTC One A9) in order to use fingerprint authentication for the Chase Mobile App. Using their fingerprint to log into the Chase Mobile App, customers will be able to view their account balances and much more. For example:
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View activity for Bill Pay, Transfers, and Chase QuickPay
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Cancel payments e.g., Bill Pay, Transfers, and Chase QuickPay
Some higher-risk transactions will ask for passwords in addition to fingerprint ID to authenticate.
Bose’s team is focused on personalizing the digital banking experience for users, and he shared that the building of an internal platform to allow for robust personalization is 60% to 70% complete. This does not mean that the majority of planned personalization efforts have flowed down to customers, though some have.
A simple example is the front page of the mobile app — used by 23 million people, according to Jamie Dimon, the most of any bank app in the U.S. — which displays different images depending on the region of the customer. Deeper efforts are forthcoming from Bose and his team, located away from the main offices of JPMorgan in a more startup-like environment.
Gavin Michael, head of digital for Chase, said last year that the bank would pursue a quarterly release cycle — far faster than the standard bank product cycle. Which means users should expect more personalized features to continue to roll out in 2016.