Authentication. (Technology Tools).

Visa International and Vocent Solutions Inc., a provider of voice-print authentication solutions, have announced a two-year global strategic alliance. This alliance will facilitate new product development opportunities for Visa, utilizing Vocent's biometric voiceprint authentication to ensure secure payment transactions.

As part of the alliance, Visa and Vocent will explore opportunities to use Vocent's voiceprint authentication solutions to benefit Visa's member financial institutions, merchants and cardholders and to explore ways to bring Vocent technology, products and systems to an international audience.

As a first step in this strategic alliance, Vocent will deploy a voiceprint authentication solution to automate IT help desk services for Visa employees. By automating password reset using speech recognition and speaker verification, Voice Secure-Password Reset reduces overall transaction costs by 50-80 percent, with customers typically enjoying a 90-day payback following deployment.

Vocent, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a privately held company using industry standards to deliver packaged, platform-independent voice applications that securely automate a wide range of business transactions. Its Voice Secure family of products enables quick authentication of users' identities. Voice Secure solutions are packaged applications that in most cases can be installed in 30 days.

Web: www.vocent.com