There just doesn’t exist the same level of trust in banks and in digital channels to look after hard-earned money, as arguably exists throughout Europe and the USA. Internet penetration in Latin America is very low relative to other countries where banks offer digital services to their customers. Bancarization – a term used to describe the measurement of access in countries or regions to financial inclusion such as banking services, including online banking services – has been slow to gain momentum in Latin America. There has been an extensive migration of customers to digital services including online banking and e-commerce as a direct result of the pandemic. New research commissioned by Mastercard and prepared by Americas Market Intelligence in April of this year shows that 55 percent of consumers in the region now have a bank account and over 50 percent of these consumers are conducting their banking transactions online.
A general move to online banking was gathering momentum here before the pandemic, the banking and e-commerce industries in Latin America have been forced to accelerate to meet the scaled demands created by Covid-19. Unfortunately, this means there has simultaneously been a huge increase in the opportunity for fraudsters to commit online banking fraud in the region. The customers themselves are not used to banking online. The most common fraud attacks, including social engineering attacks such as phishing attacks, will suddenly be extremely effective for fraudsters, as customers will have had no previous experience of online services and will not know what to deem as suspicious activity or what to look out for and avoid. A solution combining deep learning and behavioral biometrics can accurately verify a user’s identity throughout their entire online session by analyzing thousands of parameters unique to each user’s typical behavior such as the way in which they type their name or move their mouse. Deep learning means the solution becomes increasingly accurate to each user every time they log in, while users’ identities can be validated continuously and invisibly, maintaining a frictionless user experience. In this way banks in Latin America can ensure their post-pandemic landscape includes enduring success, with the shift to online banking services emerging as wholly a good thing, continuing safely and with customers’ full trust.