Lloyds Banking Group has become the latest UK banking group to enable selfie face recognition technology for the opening of new accounts.Customers of Lloyd's Bank of Scotland will be able to follow a step-by-step guide and simply take pictures of their UK driving license or passport, along with selfie images in order to confirm their identity.In September, HSBC announced that business customers could now open and verify a bank account by using a photo and facial recognition.Lloyds has said that the biometric feature will not only to make it faster for customers to open an account, but also to help lower the threat of financial fraud.Brian Spector, CEO, MIRACL said: “The volume of financial fraud has risen dramatically in the past year as hackers have become more sophisticated and are managing to bypass traditional methods of security with alarming ease. A range of tactics which once seemed secure – such as identity verification via text message – are become easier for hackers to exploit.”As the payments market has become more open, with a plethora of third parties now sitting between banks and their customers, it has become paramount to accurately verify the identities of people accessing the data and systems involved.”Fortunately, the European payments market is on the cusp of a radical change. Rather than being just a swathe of red tape, the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) is a much-needed attempt to prevent our entire banking system from being exploited by hackers.”Earlier this month, MasterCard launched its own biometric authentication technology across Europe after a successful trial of the technology.

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