BMO Financial Group and Toronto-based BioConnect announced the launch of a biometric authentication platform. Integrated with IBM's security authentication solutions, the platform enables BMO to offer its commercial and corporate clients BioConnect's leading mobile biometric authentication platform through BMO Online Banking for Business.

"We continue to transform the bank with a focus on offering new digital capabilities that will enhance the user experience and align with changing customer expectations, and this partnership is a reflection of that," said Sharon Haward-Laird, Head, NA Treasury & Payment Solutions.  "Offering a way for our customers to quickly authenticate transactions and payments using biometric authentication vastly improves the customer experience while enhancing security for our clients in Canada and the U.S."

BMO has also launched the BMO Banking for Business Mobile App, which also uses biometric authentication to handle and approve transactions quickly and safely while on the go.

Biometric Technology Quickly Replacing Traditional Authentication Methods

Instead of leveraging a traditional physical token, BioConnect's robust platform curates biometric sensory information, fingerprint, voice, face or eye, to authenticate transactions, providing stronger identity assurance during the authentication process and augmenting the familiar username and password method.

"Biometric-based solutions are going to replace outdated options based on usernames and passwords", said Jeff Crews, Chief Customer Officer, BioConnect.  "We are very excited to be collaborating with both BMO and IBM Canada to leverage the latest available biometric technology into a simple, secure authentication solution for end-users."

"For the past 101 years, IBM has had an unwavering commitment to bring innovative and relevant solutions to help the Canadian financial services industry continuously evolve and reinvent," said Maxime Desbiens, Market Leader, Security, IBM Canada. "This collaboration pairs BioConnect's biometrics  and IBM's broad security expertise to help BMO provide its customers with secure access management as they introduce new digital technologies to meet current and future banking needs."