Speech recognition to become Nationwide security tool

After an infancy in the upper echelons of high-tech society, speech recognition has finally found its niche.

Ironically, following a year of growing interest from consumers and small businesses, the biggest market for speech-recognition developer Vocalis is now traditional phone services.

Charles Halle, CEO, Vocalis told Silicon.com: "We're trying to identify people down a telephone line, and that's very important to people because there's a big security risk of people memorising other people's passwords, etc. But if you can recognise their voiceprint, then this is a real enhancement."

Vocalis used to focus on selling to large corporations and technology experts. But its recent SpeechMail service allows people to access their emails using speech commands over the telephone.

Banks and building societies are treating it as an innovation in customer service. Nationwide was first to announce its interest. It is trialling Vocalis products in its 400-strong Isle of Man call centre.

But Nationwide spokesman, Mark Hamilton, insisted that investing in telephone technologies did not affect the company's commitment to online communications.

Hamilton told Silicon.com: "All the forecasts we've seen show that the volume of business will increase across all channels - phone, Web and even our branches. I don't think phone access will eat into the others. We're investing in new technologies everywhere."

The full interview with Vocalis' Charles Halle is available on Silicon's Telecoms Channel (http://www.silicon.com/a34436 ).