(Chicago Tribune (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jul. 31--Sure, many financial institutions say each and every customer is special.

But now some banks and investment houses are counting on it, paying particularly close attention to the lilt of their customers' voices, the lay of their tongues and even the size of their nasal passages.

Those are key factors in voice verification, a new technology trumpeted in recent weeks by at least two big financial institutions, including the Dutch parent of Chicago-based LaSalle Bank. Both promise voice verification will eliminate the need for account holders who conduct business via the telephone to memorize personal identification numbers.

It also would spare those who don't remember them from an I-know-that-Post-It-note-with-my-PIN-is-somewhere-around-here search. Consumers need rely only on their voices to handle their financial matters over the phone.

After conducting 25,000 test calls involving 1,450 people, Dutch bank ABN Amro announced July 20 that it was launching biometric voice verification for telephone banking on a voluntary basis in the Netherlands.

The six-month trial by ABN Amro included tests of six sets of twins and numerous cold sufferers, speaking on both landlines and cell phones, in both froggy morning voices and hoarse evening tones.

The timing of its announcement came shortly after DWS Scudder mutual funds, part of Deutsche Bank Group, began notifying account holders that it has updated its automated line to include optional voice-verification technology. Scudder said its system "uses the unique voice patterns of each person to recognize shareholders and eliminates the need to enter a personal identification number."

While ABN and Scudder have moved beyond the test phase, other financial institutions are looking at the technology.

Riverwoods-based credit card company Discover Financial Services LLC said it is exploring voice-recognition and authentication programs to improve customer service. It declined to be more specific, but it did say that what it is mulling goes beyond merely speaking a department's name to be routed to that department. The same applies to Charter One Bank, where a spokeswoman said it also is looking at a variety of voice-banking options.

The use of voice verification as a way to lessen the need for PINs coincides with the use of other biometrics, including a pay-by-touch fingerprint system at Jewel stores.

But a few customers banking at a LaSalle Bank branch at 940 N. Michigan Ave. on Friday sounded skeptical about whether they'd use voice recognition over a password if LaSalle offered the choice.

"I don't know if I'd use it just because I like to see everything in front of me in print," said Chicago chiropractor Michael Kauf. "It sounds like it would be convenient, but I'm not sure I would use it."

ABN said its VoiceVault technology, owned by United Kingdom-based Biometric Security Ltd., uses more than 100 check points, including pitch, frequency, soft or hard palate, jaw structure and other facial characteristics, to verify whether the voice matches the caller. ABN customers will have to speak their account numbers but "will not have to remember pass codes anymore."

The bank said time-consuming menus also would be a thing of the past, eliminating the need to type onto a phone keypad.

ABN, which has 4 million customers in the Netherlands, believes it is the first major bank to introduce voice-verification technology on such a broad scale.

ABN's program is expected to authenticate up to 28 million calls a year, Biometric Security said in its July 21 announcement about ABN's Netherlands rollout.

The system weeds out mimics and recognizes when people have colds, ABN spokeswoman Brigitte Seegers said.

Seegers said an identity thief could not surreptitiously tape an account holder's voice and try to pass it off as the real thing.

"A tape-recorded voice doesn't possess facial characteristics," she said.

To sign up for the voice-verification system, customers first must state their account number four times so the system can make a voice print along with a record of the significant facial characteristics used to utter the sounds. Then they are given a secret question to answer, also four times, to set up the system.

Afterward, when customers call in, they state their account number and answer the secret question, then the system asks how it can help. Depending on the answer, the call will be transferred to the appropriate department.

Initially, ABN's voice verification will be used for customers' checking account balances and making account transfers and investment orders via phone.

A small group of customers, about 50, has been introduced to the technology. The rollout will continue in the Netherlands in 2007, Seegers said.

It's too soon to say whether ABN's U.S. operations, including LaSalle, will get voice verification in telephone banking.

"We need to roll this out first in the Netherlands," she said.

An April study by Unisys Corp. found that 71 percent of North American consumers supported biometrics for identity verification, more than any other region. Europe followed with 69 percent support, and Asia Pacific with 68 percent. Meanwhile, Latin Americans were the least supportive, at 58 percent.

Voice recognition is the most favored authentication method, cited by 32 percent of respondents, followed by fingerprints, with 27 percent; facial scan, by 20 percent; hand geometry, at 12 percent; and iris scans, by 10 percent.

But Cynthia Chico-Rodriguez, another LaSalle customer who learned of the technology that LaSalle's parent is starting to use, said she'd think long and hard about using a voice print to do phone banking instead of old-fashioned pass codes.

"I know there is equipment that recognizes your voice, but I'd need to have more information," before relying on it, said Chico-Rodriguez.

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