Notes when installing face authentication on banking apps

At the end of 2023, the State Bank issued Decision No. 2345/QD-NHNN on implementing safety and security solutions in online payments and bank card payments.

In this decision, from July 1, customers must authenticate biometrically via face or fingerprint when making their first banking transaction using Mobile Banking. Accordingly, online money transfer transactions of over VND10 million/transaction or cumulative over VND20 million/day must be authenticated by face.

At this time, when logging into banking applications (apps), users will see notifications asking to set up biometric authentication. If the notification does not appear on the home screen, users can find it in the "Settings" or "Accounts" section.

For example, in the VPBank app, the notification to perform biometric authentication is displayed on the main screen when logging in. The user selects “Perform” to start authentication according to the bank’s instructions.

In the first step, you need to take a photo of the front of your ID card, scan the QR code and take a photo of the back of your ID card. In this step, users need to place the ID card on a flat surface, move the phone camera so that the ID card matches the frame on the app so that the photo is clear. If the photo is blurry, you will have to do it again.

Then comes the facial authentication step. The banking application will ask the account holder to turn his face to the right, left, down and front. Note, at each angle, you need to slow down and hold still for a few seconds so that the authentication image is clear, rotating too fast will cause errors and have to be done again.

The final step is to authenticate the chip-embedded citizen ID. To do this, users need to enable the NFC feature on their smartphone. Note that the NFC feature will always be enabled on iPhones; and for phones using the Android operating system, you will have to go to "Settings" and select "Connections".

With NFC enabled, the user must bring the chip-embedded ID card close to the back of the smartphone and hold it for 3-4 seconds so that the application can read the information on the card. When the banking application displays all the information, the user checks it again and confirms it. This means the face authentication is successful.

However, each phone line has different chip locations, which can be next to the camera or in the middle of the phone. Therefore, users need to move the citizen ID card up and down vertically on the phone until the 2 chips find each other and hold for a few seconds.

In fact, in the current market, there are many smartphones with powerful configurations but still do not have NFC readers. There are no exact statistics on the percentage of customers using these devices, but this is also an obstacle for some customer groups.

However, when encountering this problem, bank account owners are still supported by going directly to the branch for initial authentication.

With the biometric authentication application on the Techcombank app, users will perform the same steps as with the VPBank app.

With MBBank, after accessing the app, select "Utilities", go to "Security settings for transactions" then select "Face authentication", set the transaction level that requires face authentication. Next, select "Confirm" and enter the D-OTP code; finally "Set up authentication method successfully".

On the MBBank app, right from the time of registering to use the application, users must take photos of the front and back of their ID card, authenticate their face... Therefore, when authenticating biometrics on the MBBank app, the operation is quite simple and fast.

TPBank representative said that for foreign customers residing in Vietnam who are not issued with a chip-embedded citizen identification card, they can use their passport and go directly to the bank branch to have staff support them in checking and updating their biometric information into the database.