Royal Bank of Scotland yesterday launched a new service for its RBS and NatWest customers enabling them to log on to the bank’s mobile application using their fingerprints, becoming the first British bank to do so.
RBS, which is 80 percent-owned by the British government, said its new “Touch ID” would be available for nearly 1 million Apple iPhone users that have RBS or NatWest mobile banking apps. The technology recognizes customers’ fingerprints so they do not need to remember a password to log in.
RBS said in June last year it would invest over £1 billion (US$1.5 billion) over the next three years to make it easier for clients to bank when they are on the move and offset a decline in branch usage.
The move is part of the bank’s reaction to a decline in customers using its branches and growth in those banking online and via mobile phone apps.
RBS said the technology would enable 880,000 RBS and NatWest customers who have particular types of iPhones to access their accounts within seconds.
Other banks are also investing in technology designed to make it easier for customers to log in and to prevent fraud.
Barclays last year launched a finger scanner for corporate clients and said it would introduce voice recognition for millions of retail clients. RBS said nearly half its 15 million clients now bank online, with over 3 million using its mobile app each week.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day