Uniphore Software System Teams with Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications and Uniphore Software Systems, a speech-based mobility solution provider, announced a partnership that will expand the use of Nuance speech recognition and voice biometric solutions in banking institutions in India.
The Uniphore Mobile Voice Banking application is powered by Nuance VocalPassword, an advanced voice biometric solution that verifies a speaker's identity based on voice samples acquired during interactions with voice, Web, or mobile apps. The application also uses Nuance Recognizer Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) engine to enable speech-based navigation of transactions. Mobile Voice Banking will support 14 languages and dialects common in India.
By leveraging Nuance solutions, Uniphore has developed a mobile voice banking application that identifies customers with voice biometrics, and processes the entire transaction through the use of speech-based navigation. Users can conduct banking and commercial transactions with any mobile phone, including low-cost feature phones, entirely through automated conversation. All transactions occur in real time, have local language options, and provide customers with account updates using Nuance text-to-speech and outbound text message technologies.
The Uniphore partnership expands Nuance's presence in India, which has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Speech as a medium for authentication is especially important in rural areas of India, where personal computer ownership and Web-based banking is limited, and literacy levels are lower than in other parts of the country, the companies noted.
Ultimately, the partnership will extend to the development of applications in other verticals, including mobile health and mobile commerce.
"Uniphore exists to deliver voice-based applications that promote business outreach across all social, economic, and geographic markets by leveraging the ubiquity of mobile phones in India," said Umesh Sachdev, co-founder and CEO of Uniphore Software Solutions, in a statement. "We are very excited by the possibilities of utilizing Nuance's solutions on behalf of our customers to deliver secure, convenient banking applications to the rural market, taking rural banking and eventually mHealth and mCommerce to a whole new level."