ATMs for the blind

People with poor vision will have better access to automatic teller machines following technology upgrades at three of Australia`s major banks.

Australian IT reports that ANZ Bank, St George Bank and the Commonwealth Bank are in the midst of autoteller upgrades that will make the machines easier to use for blind and visually impaired people.

Following the upgrades, a larger number of autotellers will be fitted with audio features that convert text into speech.

Vision Australia, recently formed from the merger of three state-based organisations, said organisations of blind people had been lobbying for better access to ATMs since the late 1990s, when banks introduced fees for over-the-counter transactions.

Banks are slowly moving towards deploying voice-authentication technologies to add an extra layer of security for online and telephone banking customers, reports ZDNet Australia.

The majority of Internet banking customers currently access their accounts using a username and password, but this is expected to change as banks look to cost-effectively address customer concerns about security.

Although voice authentication on its own is "bottom of the heap" as an alternative to tokens and biometrics, it makes a very useful - and cost effective - third layer of security to back up two-factor authentication systems such as passwords and tokens, says Geoff Johnson, VP of research, enterprise networks at Gartner Asia Pacific.

More than half a million UK Internet users have stopped banking online because of security fears, according to a survey from Forrester Research.

Vnunet.com reports that about 600 000 of the UK`s 15 million internet banking customers have turned away from online financial transactions because of concerns about keystroke logging software and phishing e-mails aimed at stealing customer funds.